Arlen and Voz took the new stairs down into the volcanic crater, calling the spirits' bluff. The masters of the islands didn't answer with deadly force. Arlen tore open the stone at the base of it and braced himself, fearing a geyser. But his bet paid off: there was a buried stairwell of a more ancient and advanced style, leading to a lost facility of the Builders.

Voz's voice echoed in the depths. "So this whole time, the ones guiding us were another project of the Builders. No supernatural wisdom."

"It's not necessarily bad," Arlen consoled him. "I want to know the truth."

The chiefs of the Mire and Gull Crater had followed them. "How can this be?" asked the Mire man.

Arlen said, "It's possible to build a creature that talks. How smart, I don't know. But maybe it can give good advice sometimes, and call itself a collection of spirits."

A version of the golems of Catacomb pulled itself up from a rubble pile, and lurched as though being thrown by a child. Arlen had seen the movement early and began pulling the floor and walls inward. The beast rattled against this barrier. Arlen trapped it by flowing more stone around its body.

In response, it spoke. Or some device built into this old tunnel did, in the spirits' voices. "Voz! We require back the power that we once granted you. Give yourself to us. We will grow strong enough again to restore the storm and drive the intruders away."

Voz recoiled. "What about the undeath pillar, and its power?"

"It should be brought to us too." Another voice chimed in, "Along with Arlen! His power is another aspect of what was taken from us. When we have it all, we will be true protectors of the islands."

Voz shuddered and said, "You ask for our lives."

The two chiefs behind them had their hands on knives at their belts. The Mire man looked like he was considering trying something. Gull Crater's chief said, "But Arlen got his power from old ruins, not from you."

Arlen shouted at the trapped stone monster. "You don't need all of this! If you take away me and Voz and the outsiders, what will you have? A perpetual storm hiding you from the world. The islanders will know there's an ocean of things to discover, that they'll never get to see."

The two chiefs restrained one another, both now seeming unsure about the spirits' demand. "You want to defy them?" asked the Mire chief.

Arlen addressed the chiefs including Voz. "I know a possible future for the isles, where you learn and build and ultimately you don't need me. But you won't get there if all you do is hide. You've been given a gift by the Builders, who protected you from plague and made you tougher than you ever would've been without them. That's just part of the discoveries ahead of you."

One chief said, "The Builders also gave us the mass haunting of Newshore, and the crazed golems, and the poisoning of the Mire!"

"Yes, some of it was terrible. I tell you, even if you do get the storm back, the outside world will intrude on you someday, anyway. If you're weak and ignorant, your descendants will be conquered and ruined. I helped make you strong enough to decide on your destiny today."

"If the storm returns, we won't need to fear. Nothing can get through it."

"I did."

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They couldn't refute that. Arlen was from somewhere else, after all, even if they didn't understand just how far away.

Arlen wanted to know how he'd arrived, really, and he now wondered if the cause was the same as all the other strangeness on these islands. He cracked his knuckles, then concentrated and made the stone walls smash and rend the golem that stood on his way. "I'm going farther in. You can't stop me from trying."

"It's heresy!" said the Mire chief. The others looked less certain.

"Voz, if you think I'm wrong to investigate, I'll understand if you want to banish me afterward. But for now, I want the foreign priest to come down here and join us in seeing the truth."

#

Arlen waited in the depths. The spirits' voice was muffled down here once the golem was gone, and they hadn't summoned another. First the individual island chiefs turned tail and then Voz left, speaking quietly. "I'll come back. I'd rather know what's going on, than tell myself I already know."

Arlen trusted him, and besides, Arlen was the one who knew how to make tunnels collapse on people. He waited in the depths with only distant sunlight and a small glowing spell.

Alfons came down bearing a lantern, accompanied by Voz. They were soaked from the howling wind and rain that the spirits might be controlling as a weak but dangerous version of the one that had lashed the isles so recently.

The priest said, "So the ruling spirits of the land are another creation of mankind. Meddling would-be gods who care only for themselves."

Voz said, "You don't know anything. Don't lecture us."

Arlen suggested, "They've granted magic to many people over the years and offered advice. Maybe their advice is only flawed."

The priest said, "Then they don't deserve worship."

"Respect, at least. As Voz says, you should learn more before passing judgment."

Deeper into the tunnel network, they found more areas that were part of a Builder facility. Much like the stonework in the Catacomb, this place had once been a living or working area.

Voz said, "These markings look like some of the old ceremonial designs."

Alfons looked around at long-collapsed furniture, saying, "I recognize an old temple in this same style, from back home!"

To Arlen it all had a spartan military look, long abandoned so that the secure doors had failed and any bodies were long gone. But then they passed through some type of air-maintaining barrier into a room like a library. Glittering shelves of stone filled the warm space and the circuit tracings flickered like stars.

Arlen laughed. "Server room."

"What?" said Voz and Alfons.

"I'm pretty sure this equipment contains the minds of the spirits."

The chief paled. "How would you know that?"

"I've seen similar things. And it's more intact than anything else here, still doing something."

Voz prayed, but got no response.

Arlen said, "If I'd built this place, I would've make sure that the spirits inhabiting it had little direct control in here. Similar to the chemical plant."

Alfons dared to reach toward the lights and touch one. He gasped and drew back from an inch away, saying, "Highly charged! I don't advise touching it yourself."

Voz looked around, and said, "That old Builder crest is here, as at the other facilities. And three symbols of Sea and Sky and Land."

Alfons added, "I believe this rod here extends out of the cave, toward the crater. Maybe concentrating power so that the spirits can appear and speak from there." He turned toward Voz with a sympathetic look. "Chief, I see all this as evidence that your spirits are no more perfect than the Builders themselves, who fought and died."

Voz shut his eyes and thought. "But they fought and died for us, partly. That's worthy of respect. And they gave the spirits to us."

Below the spirit-server room, they found something stranger still. Much like a temple but to gods or spirits unknown to any of them.

Alfons had the most insight. "Some of this reminds me of certain heresies from our ancient past." He cursed, startling Arlen.

"What?"

"It's complicated; it would take an hour to explain the symbol here. I think my sect was wrong this whole century about a certain bit of doctrine."

"And you'd admit it?"

"I want to know the true path."

Voz showed no glee in catching the foreigner's error. "The Builders had spirits of their own, then? Some different set?"

The priest said, "My friend, you are long-lost cousins. My people should be working with yours."

Arlen asked, "As equals?"

Alfons struggled to explain, finally repeating, "It's complicated."

Arlen saved that discussion for later. "We can bring others here to testify to what's down here."

Voz said, "Right past the home of the spirits?"

Alfons said, "Arlen can dig around it for their safety."

"That's not the point."

Alfons assured him, "Whatever happens, our gods will want to know you again."