Like the Ipithid plain, even after days of travel, the environment had barely changed. Thick snow, thick clouds, freezing temperatures, all part of a complete package of misery and gloom. Still however, Alisson had to be thankful for a few things. No beasts had attacked, not any corporeal ones, or any of the paranormal, unkillable kind. Even Celis said that since Eufrozina’s city, she hadn’t seen any Sequiturs. And, without coming here, he wouldn’t have been able to meet with that hermit heretic in the first place.
Alisson had taken the following couple days to truly let what she had said seep into his brain. The more he looked back on it, the more abnormal her behavior came off as. Although not as eccentric as Sylph or Lavjoure at face value in a conversation, behind everything she appeared as, was something truly gut-wrenching to Alisson. She had at first said that he wouldn’t find anything in the Deadzone, before casually pointing Alisson in the right direction toward a place that may host what he was searching for, it made no sense at first to him; the same as why at first she hadn’t given her name until after her business with them was over. It was all contrary to the reasoning she had given.
Alisson only had one thought process about why this was – that as the hermit, Eufrozina, had spoken with him and Celis, she had gradually warmed up to them, either by gauging their characters or learning of the Lady’s intentions. A combination of both perhaps lead her to so suddenly change her tune. And then there was the fact that she had so abruptly kicked them out like that. She didn’t really explain why, other than the fact the night was dangerous, before her entire damn tower collapsed out of nowhere. It was puzzling. Either Eufrozina was dead, or she was confident that Sidonia couldn’t hurt her. Those were the two possibilities. All of her actions could’ve been interrupted as falling into either camp – such as aiding him and Celis so much; with both Celis’s now imbued weapons and Alisson with his Bacilla. Not to mention the two, ‘afflictions’ she cured them of, of both the tracking spell of Andestine and the Sequitur ‘imprint’.
An imprint, that, Alisson theorized came from the forest of black, far, far, back in their journey. Celis had reminded him during their travel of when he touched her forehead, looking for a deformity planted by a vision, and reckoned that the hermit had removed a deep-seeded object buried into Celis by the forest. It was far-fetched, but it was Alisson’s only culprit, so he agreed with her. For doing so many favors, the hermit didn’t exactly describe many of them, so he couldn’t be sure of it.
Favors that may have very well been simple bones that she tossed to helpless animals out of sly pity, or that could have been the amalgamation or her very lifeforce.
Alisson shook his head. There was no point in being caught up in finding the truth. Whatever the truth was, it was definite, and for the most part, didn’t affect him, curiosity was simply a strong emotion. However what may pertain to him, to everyone in the world, was the history she spoke of, that, that Alisson wanted to know more of. Eufrozina caught on quite quickly that him and Celis knew nothing of what she spoke of, and reasoned that Sidonia must’ve purposely kept hidden this unknown history and stage play behind the very motion of the world. Sidonia has her reasons for keeping it all a secrete, surely, or else the hermit is as crazy as she was heretical.
As much as he repeated that statement in his head however, Alisson couldn’t shake the suspicion, the doubt growing at the edges of his mind of his Lady.
Alisson bit his lip. Here he was in the middle of nowhere trying to prove his loyalty, only to find more reason to question it. Alisson shook his head once more. This was all talk and debate for after they made it out of the Deadzone, with or without that so called ‘key’ Eufrozina had described; something that can increase someone’s mana limit, as in, their humanity. How exactly this item would go about that, Alisson didn’t know. All he knew, was that it could be found the northern city. Could. Perhaps not.
Alisson had one definite lead however – Enhérejär was continually expanding in radius – the thickness of mana was growing ever more, and using this, Alisson was able to easily make his way in the direction of this city. Or at least, what he thought was the city. Perhaps the mana density and the city have nothing to do with each other, but considering that the mana was increasing in the same direction that Eufrozina had pointed them to, Alisson had a glimmer of hope.
Perhaps this item they were searching for was the source of the mana density in this region. Thinking on these terms, there must be similar items in both Ferstadt and Daigoro. If they only needed one of them…Then why the hell was Alisson here, in the most dangerous place of the three?
Well, that was hindsight, and one big theory, that may not be true, however it would surely be nice for it to be the case – because the mana density would lead Alisson right where he needed to go. Conversely however, if this was true, that meant that two of these items, that increased mana capacity to a god-like degree, were in human territories. The possibility that the humans had possession of these items was gut-wrenching, to say the least.
But these were all the things Alisson was able to conclude from just piecing together info. Once he shared his thoughts with Celis, she found them dubious, but in her usually fashion, shrugged, uncaring, seeming far more set on staying near to Alisson, than staying on the path that accomplished their mission. Which wasn’t bad. Not at all.
The winds were picking up in intensity, and despite Alisson’s fingers freezing and his mask fogged up with fatigue from trudging through the snow, one glance at their surroundings didn’t immediately make clear that they had traversed a distance at all. He had his Opensen activated for as long as he could since they’d left Eufrozina’s city, but ultimately, the cold winds forced Alisson to deactivate it before his tire did. Eufrozina had explained that Alisson’s Bacilla, like Alisson’s Opensen, ran on mana, however a separate stream, different from the one he used to cast spells, like the human and Nekomata part of him were somehow two different people. Knowing this now, he could tick off that mystery, of how exactly his Opensen worked, it was all magic. If only everything was that simple.
Despite his prodding, he remembered distinctly that both Sylph and Lavjoure insisted that they were not beings made of mana as spirits were widely described as. The same with that imbued weapon that Eufrozina had pilfered from Alisson and subsequently thrown away, it apparently wasn’t magic either. Couldn’t the world simply all be explained away by magic? It would certainly make Alisson feel surer of himself, but he supposed that was why religion existed, to explain the unexplainable. He’d like to know where exactly in the Caliph’s Lexicon Sequiturs and Darkwalkers were explained.
Amid Alisson’s inner musings, the winds had only ever increased in speed, dangerously so. A serious blizzard was about to slam into him and Celis, and they’d need to soon fortify an area to wait out the weather. Just as Alisson were to order a halt for this matter however, he saw in the distance, a vague outline in the dark blue fogs of the surrounding snow storm. It was tall, and sharp, piercing the sky, and ending in a point. It reminded Alisson of a Caliphate minaret, nothing like the blocky buildings in Eufrozina’s city.
Well, whatever it was, it was a large object, it was better than nothing to bulid a fort against to protect from the winds. He motioned forward with a hand, and the both of them wordlessly continued forward toward the break in terrain. As they approached, Alisson noticed above, Enhérejär expanding at an unprecedented rate, far faster then it had before. Alisson’s eyes narrowed at the structure before them. It became apparent quite quickly that although this object was of odd shape, it still was a building.
The skeleton of steel rebar and plastered concrete held firmly against the tumbling snowdrifts. Empty window frames covered most surfaces of the building, long having been shattered. It took a while to reach the base of the building, the shear scale of it only now becoming apparent to Alisson as the summit of the structure was made apparent, far above in the clouds, as a single thin metal rod.
As the winds blew, Alisson heard faint creaking noises from the metal of the structure, the age of the building made apparent by its audible strain. The two sat before the building for a moment, perhaps intimidated by it.
Alisson took a step forward, Come on, if we can get inside, we don’t need to fear the storm much.
He said, using telepathy in spite of the loud winds.
Alisson didn’t see any immediate openings in the base of the structure, at least none that fit a humanoid. If Scratskoslovotskaya were a better equipped town, they’d be loaded with scrolls and imbued magic items, but as it stood, that was not the case, they had only their own magic to rely on.
Not only my own…
Alisson remembered his Bacilla. He activated his Opensen, and after a moment of feeling both his tails and his ears crushed flat against his body by the protective gear, tried to further activate his Bacilla. Alas, it was no use. He wanted to try to use that mana expulsion technique, but that couldn’t exactly take place if Alisson’s Bacilla didn’t even listen to him. That, and they were in no place for Eufrozina’s ‘technique’ of coaxing them out. Alisson blushed.
Instead, him and Celis formed close together, and started to bulid spells for a barrage to open an entrance into the structure. Even if they had a Reysarke scroll, Alisson would prefer not to use it, not wanting to test his luck with the structural integrity of this rotting caricature of a building. A more precise strike should do the trick. The winds howled against them the two of them for a moment as they stood huddled together, arms raised out toward the concrete before them.
Ready.
Ready.
Pict and Pictun spells suddenly surged from their hands, each aimed very deliberately and fired off in a staccato patience not standard of the usual frantic barrages in combat. The yellow lances of energy glowed only dully in the fierce winds, their bright emissive light eaten up greedily by the snow. They pounded into the concrete. The first few did little if anything, but the concentrated fire of spells eventually caved in a section of the wall. Vapor rose from both his and Celis’s gauntlets as the area fell silent once more other than the groans of the building. The hole in the structure yielded only black, and Alisson thought for sure that something would emerge from it, disturbed from eons of slumber with a renewed bout of rage; but nothing came of it. They both deployed magic lights, which flew forward in a train into the gap in the wall, before expanding and spreading out as they infiltrated the black void of the wall.
The two of them formed up on either side of the opening, glancing in and making sure that nothing would endanger them. It seemed to be of the usual sort, twisted metal chunks, various rotted debris, and the shimmer of broken glass across dusty, rusted floor. Small piles of snow were in the building, having leaked in through various breaches, but it was far better than the outside, no doubt. Celis and him entered the opening, their weapons drawn and their eyes sweeping every shadow formed by the lights.
The temperature had done a miraculous job of preserving the interior. Pieces of furniture, broken and rotted, lay dormant through the floor, but still identifiable as such.
Satisfied of no imminent threat, Alisson let go of Enhérejär, and let it float before his hand, before it expanded outward in a radial pattern. The flower of Enhérejär’s slivers blossomed for quite some time, before reaching its limit, the largest radius Alisson had seen to date. He motioned his hand up, and with it, Enhérejär followed, gliding through the air, following the path of his arm until it was above his head.
The radius was smaller, if only by a millimeter.
He brought his hand slowly down, and as Enhérejär followed, it expanded.
Alisson’s eyes sharpened. His hunch was right. This was no pitstop on their journey to the northern city. This was the northern city. He turned to Celis.
“Our objective is underground.”
She nodded, and Alisson continued, “Eufrozina said that the northern city could only be accessed by one point on the surface, this seems to be it. The rest of the buildings are probably buried beneath the snow.”
Celis looked down, and then at Alisson. “I didn’t bring a shovel.”
Alisson shook his head. “I’ve been in one of these places before with Rei – At the Eigert-5 hive. There was a staircase that took us up the length of the building, I can only imagine that there’s one here that we can use to traverse down.”
Celis nodded.
Thus, the two of them initiated the deep search of the building in order to find some semblance of diagonal traversal. If this structure was built by humans as it most likely was, and if the snow had once not been here, and the majority of this structure thus not covered underground, humans needed some way to get all the way up here, surely. They found more of those steel doors, like the ones him and Rei had round at Eigert-5. They were as rusted, and some were missing entirely. Alisson peeked his head through one of the missing doorways to find not a room but an entire shaft. He looked up, and the shaft led on until black. He looked down, and shaft led on until the light could not reach any further. Perhaps these sets of steel doors and shafts were the method of diagonal movement in this structure.
Whatever it was, Alisson wasn’t sure how it was used, or what it’s purpose was. Perhaps it really was for escalation and such, and the humans simply flew up and down through the shafts. Him and Celis weren’t equipped magically for that, the best they could do was take a step forward fall to their certain deaths. Alisson decided to postpone that idea until after they’d finished sweeping as much of the building as they could.
The winds picked up more and more, howling loudly, like the tormented wails of a banshee. The superstructure of the building similarly screamed and groaned in response to the ever increasing extremity of the inclement weather. Sometimes the steel of the building sounded like beasts roaring and growling; it would shriek loudly in the distance, and other times, it would lowly growl from the darkness, only to be illuminated and found that a stray pipe was echoing the sounds of the wind.
Thankfully, they did end up finding a stair shaft. It was quite small, and the stairs themselves were but a thin metal wireframe, but they led down. Like the other shafts, Alisson could look down, and not see the bottom of the staircase. Not even deploying a dozen lights helped, it was as if the staircase was endless. Alisson imagined this building was quite tall if it was anything like the one in Eigert-5, so it didn’t bother him.
Him and Celis tepidly stepped into the shaft and down the metal wireframe of stairs. Pipes wrapped around them, the whole area illuminated solely by the magic lights.
image [https://i.imgur.com/MlQtUgO.png]
In times like these, where only black surrounded him, he truly was thankful to have Celis by his side. Alone here, he didn’t think he would posses the willpower to press forward, even the mere howls of the wind and the groans of the metal would be enough to make Alisson think twice before every step.
It had only been five minutes of stepping down the shaft, and already if Alisson were to look up, he couldn’t identify where they had came from. The groaning metal of the building above gradually died down as they progressed further down the shaft.
It sounded as though the shaft were breathing, like it was one large lung. The air from the blizzard above was running into the shaft, creating a draft of cold air falling past them, grazing the walls and pipes and the stairs, creating this dull but audible hum all around them.
There was no moisture to the shaft. One would think that the snow above would melt here in an enclosed space, but it was just as cold inside the shaft as it was in the building. Alisson had his eyes trained below them, just waiting for something to jump out of the darkness. He didn’t want to look behind him, and see for his own eyes the dozens of flights of stairs above them. Only now, about thirty minutes into the descent, did Alisson realize a particular downside of this shaft. Going back up it. What if the stairs collapsed while they were down below? They’d be stuck Sidonia-knows how many meters underground, with no way up. Alisson’s stomach churned on this thought, and gave another wry glance at the metal stairs beneath his feet, wondering if the rust was sufficient enough for it to collapse on itself. There were some holes here and there, evidently from debris falling from above, but the shaft was in remarkably good condition, the concrete surrounding it on all four sides seeming to preserve it from the elements. Of course, there was the dust, rust, and general darkness, but still, it was structurally intact for the most part.
Did it ever end? Alisson asked himself about an hour into the descent. Other than the draft he heard from above, there was almost no sound. Just the steps of his and Celis’s boots hitting the metal stairs. Enhérejär was still expanding, so that was good. Alisson didn’t want it to suddenly stop, and find out there was no opening or exit to this shaft and that they’d have to dig though the walls or something. Both him and Celis were breathing more the normal, fatigued from all the steps, but it was nothing compared to trudging through the snow above.
What do you think this place was?
Celis asked him telepathically.
“I’d rather speak in a quiet place like this. Fills the air with something.”
Alisson responded. Despite his words, he spoke quite softly.
“Ah, sorry then.”
It was good to hear her voice. There were many pipes and extrusions in the shaft, so there wasn’t much echo, thankfully.
“But, what do I think this place was?” Alisson muttered to himself. “Maybe some maniac decided to bulid up and never stopped, I don’t know.”
“Up? Don’t you mean down?”
“No, I have feeling all that this building was probably just an excessively tall one, free standing, until snow came and buried it, or something along those lines. I don’t want to think that someone purposely decided to dig down and construct some sort of underground city. Why would anyone live there?”
“What if there was something really dangerous on the surface, and they had to hide underground?”
“Like beasts? That’s a novel idea, but nobody nowadays could pull off and underground city, especially if it was just to hide from beasts. You’d think people who could bulid something like this wouldn’t have a problem dealing with beasts, so it can’t be that.”
“Well…not beasts but…do you remember what Eufrozina said? About the world being a ‘hellscape’? If that’s true, then how is anybody alive today? Either people could survive the surface, or they fled underground.”
Celis words sparked some intrigue in Alisson. “Now that you mention it, didn’t Eufrozina also say that demi-gods roamed the surface, including our ancestors? Those were the ones strong enough to live there. And then there’s also the case with Lavjoure and Sylph – They both said they came from underground, where humans were…I think you might be right about that.”
Alisson said. It made sense, and certainly, something making sense in a place like this was a frivolity.
“If people did live here then…It makes this place a lot creepier right?”
Celis mused, not with any hint of fear, but tepid excitement. Alisson swallowed, peering down the dark shaft. He couldn’t describe the feeling of seeing the remnants of supposedly more capable beings. If they were so skilled as to bulid these massive structures, why weren’t they around today?
“You know…” Alisson swallowed nervously, about to say something when he thought better of it, and shook his head. He didn’t want to fear monger. “Never mind.”
Celis gave him a stare for a moment, and then smiled wryly. “Are you scared?”
Alisson frowned, and averted his eyes. “Maybe. It, it just feels like I’m walking into my own tomb, you know? There’s nobody else out here. Just us. If this staircase collapses, we’d be stranded down here, and for what?”
Celis eyes widened for whatever reason, but Alisson continued on, “Is being in this place really worth Sidonia’s words? We’re, we’re really pushing out luck by being here. No one would come for us. No one would even know that we were here. No one would know what became of us. If we were lucky we’d end up as two road markers on the path of another adventurer - You know, like that skeleton we saw underground in Freigat, with the, with the notes and the paper…That could be us, having accomplished nothing, when, when we could be back in the shining ray of the sun, back in Sidonian land.”
Alisson rambled. In a place like this, with only Celis as his witness, he felt completely free to run his mouth. Celis was silent for a while, but suddenly spoke up,
“Why don’t we take a break, Alisson?”
Alisson looked to her for a moment, a little puzzled, but for whatever reason agreed after mandating,
“Let’s keep on descending for a bit though – I don’t want to waste the lights we’ve already set up if we’re just going to be sitting around.”
Celis agreed and they both moved on. Alisson didn’t want to think of running out of mana here. What if their magic just suddenly stopped working here? No lights. No way to even see your own nose. Alisson imagined walking up all the way back up without any vision…hundred and hundreds of flights of stairs in the dark. One wrong step and…well, that wouldn’t actually be that bad, the shaft was quite small, he was confident that even if he did fall, he’d be able to grab onto one of the pipes on the side of the wall and stop himself, even in the dark.
The problem with having no lights though…He just didn’t want to be walking and then suddenly step headfirst into another body, not being his own or Celis’s. On that thought, they reached the last light that they had deployed. Directly below them, after only a dozen meters, was pitch darkness. It was like the world simply ended. Maybe that’s what hell was. You dig down far enough, and it’s just a pitch-black void of nothing.
Him and Celis sat back against the concrete wall, the metal wireframe staircase digging into his rear, but it was good to sit down for a moment. He unlatched his canteen from backpack and took a few gulps. Celis did the same with her own water. They carried with them a good amount, and if they ran out, there was always the snow…even if it was infested with Black Energy, or, ‘radiation’ as Eufrozina called it. Alisson desperately wanted to keep his mask off and breath a little, but decided better on it, even if Eufrozina had told them that the danger levels fell rapidly as one went underground.
Despite remembering this, Alisson still brought his mask up to his face when Celis grabbed onto him.
“Let me see your face. At least for a little bit.”
Alisson sighed, and put the mask in his lap, probably blushing. The two of them sat there for a long while. The more time passed, the more Alisson realized he didn’t like this place. What Celis had said was true: he was scared. Without her, he’d probably just break down crying, and not be able to leave on his own.
What a far cry from himself as his sister’s apprentice. What a weak mind he now possessed. He didn’t think it was possible for someone’s willpower to actually weaken. But he supposed, he brought his gaze to Celis, he supposed that offering himself up to someone else would do that. She made him a promise. It allowed him to be weaker.
As they had sat, the lights above in the shaft gradually twinkled off as their duration ran dry, until finally without warning, the last light in the entire shaft, the one a couple meters below them, winked off. For some reason the two of them didn’t react all that much.
“It’s a bit peaceful, in its own way, right, Alisson?”
He could only hear Celis voice. In the next moment, he didn’t know what over came up but he grabbed hold of her body, and pulled it close to his.
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“W-wah…Alisson…”
He lifted her onto his lap, and then, just hugged her tightly, closing his eyes. It made no difference, but it felt better.
“Now it’s peaceful…”
Alisson murmured without thinking, nuzzling his head against her. Celis emitted a devious little chuckle after a moment of comprehending what Alisson had done. “It’s takes being in the middle of the Deadzone, underground a kilometer and in the pitch darkness for you to do anything.”
“’Do anything’…” Alisson repeated to himself with a small smile. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
A moment passed before Celis replied, “Nothing, nothing.”
He couldn’t tell if she was embarrassed or amused.
How come it was only in a place like this that Alisson simultaneously realized both how alone he was and how lucky he was to have Celis here. He hugged her tighter. He felt a little drowsy, and a for moment contemplated falling asleep. He knew logically that it was a stupid idea, warranting the place, but despite this, Alisson pictured in his mind that they were just in a bedroom in Sidonia. If only for a moment. Sidonia. It felt so warm to think of being there. So friendly, so filled with comrades. Filled with comrades…filled with comrades…not friends.
Alisson opened his eyes dully. The truth was, in regards of friends, this place was no different from Sidonia. He had Celis. That was all.
He closed his eyes. That was all he needed. But one other person. How grateful he was. Such a dreamlike miracle that he clenched in his hands.
A few minutes passed in the pitch darkness like that. Alisson was fixated on the feeling of holding someone close, and heard vividly Celis’s breath. If he activated his Opensen, he could probably hear her heart beating as well in silence such as this.
Finally, Celis surprisingly was the one to get the two of them moving. Alisson heard her turn her head toward him, and then without warning she blew a burst of air into his face. With a yelp he shrunk back, startled. Celis giggled.
“Come on, let’s go.” She said, and in the next moment lit a magic light in her hand. Illuminating her figure staring back at him with a smile, while at the same time making clear just how dark the area really was.
Without another moment to waste, the two of them got moving down the steps once more, deploying lights to find that the scenery had not changed one bit. As Enhérejär continually expanded, he thought aloud.
“If you weren’t here, I wonder if I’d be talking to Enhérejär instead.”
“That’s no better than talking to yourself then, right?”
Alisson stared at his weapon. “Yes…Enhérejär doesn’t communicate often, and certainly not for social reasons. It’s all business.”
“VWS. It’s a VWS, Alisson, not a person.”
Alisson smiled. “Don’t worry, you don’t need to tell me that…I can’t exactly hug Enhérejär now can I?”
“Welllll…” Celis started, but Alisson was quick to elaborate,
“There wouldn’t be any heat or feeling, you know? You can’t just hug an object. A hug is when you feel someone else’s blood pulsing and hear their breath and feel their chest bob up and down, and their body fills your arms with something…”
Celis didn’t reply for a long while. When Alisson looked, she was averting her gaze, for some reason embarrassed.
Two hours, according to Alisson’s internal clock, that they descended these steps. That’s how long it took to reach the base of the building. It was almost surreal when Alisson deployed a mage light and saw with disbelief, a floor.
Regardless, Alisson was glad to be out of the shaft, and now only hoped that it didn’t collapse while they were gone. There was only one door on the base of the shaft. Him and Celis formed up on it. Their weapons drawn, ready for anything, Alisson motioned his hand through the door, and a convoy of a dozen magic lights streamed past the two of them, through the passageway.
Alisson eyed the lights. They fanned out in a semicircle from the passage way. All they illuminated was a stone floor. There were evenly spaced pillars, and so on a whim, Alissson sent one of the lights upward a few meters and confirmed that there was a ceiling. The floor and the ceiling looked identical – there weren’t any cracks or mold, or even any debris scattered about. It was just smooth stone, lit up only by Alisson blue-tinted lights.
“It looks like one large room…” Alisson murmured.
He looked to Celis, received her nod, and then they poured through the door, escorted by thicket of floating lights.
“I’ve got the front, you, the rear.”
“Right.” Celis nodded, and planted her back against his.
Alisson had learnt his lesson. They needed a 360-degree view at all times. He was fearing that some sort of beast that made no sound could simply sneak up behind them through the darkness. The typical Guardians were quite soundless, and even some of the more dangerous roamers. With a wide net of lights and constant vision over all approach vectors, the two of them should be kept safe from such surprise attacks.
As they moved forward into the room, they soon lost sight of where they had come from, and Alisson realized that they’d need some way to find it if they wanted a chance of getting out of here in the future.
Alisson launched off a Pict spell into the floor. Nothing. He stepped it up to Pictun spell.
With a sigh of relief, the floor cracked as the yellow lance of energy smashed into it.
“Well use the Pictun spells like breadcrumbs.”
Alisson said, launching off a few spells to splinter the floor where they had been, to make sure that they didn’t lose their way. So, thus forward did him and Celis alternate firing attack spells into the floor to leave a definite trail of evidence of where they had been.
After a few minutes, they ran up against a wall. In normal fashion, Alisson went along the right side. A few more minutes passed and they were met with another wall, a corner of this room. At least now they knew that this room wasn’t some intangible darkness. Alisson continued along the wall, until eventually, they met another corner, and then further after that, found embedded in the wall, a door way. It was a same door way that they had emerged from, they’d gone in a circle. Alisson could see his trail of dents in the floor.
Alisson furrowed his mouth into a frown, but continued along the wall. They met one last corner, followed by another span of walking in the darkness, until they found another doorway that they had not emerged from. There were stairs leading up. In the usual fashion, him and Celis formed up on the door, sent lights through and then followed the lights, still watching each other’s backs.
Thankfully this flight of stairs was quite short, and led to another stone-floored room, only this one had debris, and with a quick fan out of his lights, determined to have normal sized proportions. The room they had emerged into from the shaft was probably some sort of storage area or basement. The wall in this room had window frames however. They unlike the windows of surface building in that the glass was still intact, or at least, some of it was. As him and Celis creeped through the room, past numerous shelves, and unidentifiable junk, with every other step did they crunch over broken glass.
Not exactly great for stealth, but with so many lights everywhere, they were already a beacon for anything down here. When they reached the windowed walls, and sent their lights further beyond them, Alisson saw with shock that beyond the windows of the room, was snow.
He clicked his tongue. “We must be on the base level of the city- snow must be piled all the way up the buildings then.”
“Still don’t have a shovel.”
Celis put in. Alisson shook his head. “No, I wouldn’t dig through the snow even if we could. I don’t want to be buried in an avalanche. Come on, let’s see if we can find any routes around it.”
Still back to back, they reached the walls of the room, and found a door leading to the outside. Upon further inspection of the door, which seemed to have been made of glass that had long shattered, there was a small pathway hugging the building that was clear of snow. The building must have had extrusions further up that caught some of the snow fall.
He motioned to Celis, and the two of them stepped over the broken door and out of the building, to be met with snow an inch from their faces. On one side, they had the smooth concrete of a building, on the other, piled high, ancient snow, its cold radiating away and wafting toward Alisson. Like it would melt with his mere presence.
The two of them scooted along the side of the building for a while, hugging the stone, careful to not disturb the wall of snow.
They emerged out of the snow corridor fairly quickly, and into the open. Fanning out their lights, Alisson noticed quite quickly what looked to be a road. It was not paved with stones but rather some sort of black, cracked solid. The caricatures of other buildings surrounded them, jutting out of the snow. There must’ve been some kind of balcony or canopy above them, freeing the place from the snow and letting at least this small portion of the city be uncovered by snow and ice. There was what looked to be a steel wagon on the road. It’s metal was long rusted, and white paint peeled from its walls. There was some kind of red cross on the wagon. Alisson wasn’t expecting to see any coloring in the underground city, but perhaps the snow had done a better job of preservation than he’d previously thought.
Alisson kicked down one of the doors, expecting something leap out at him, but all he found were a couple shelves of items within the wagon, it seems to have been abandoned. Alisson immediately recognized a few of the items as being filters for their masks, and promptly snatched them up. Wondering if there was any other anti-Black Energy equipment, him and Celis searched the wagon further for a few minutes, finding boxes of gauzes, scalpels, pills, and various bottled liquids. It must’ve been a medical supply wagon, or something of the sort.
They couldn’t very well use any of the pills or liquids, since Alisson had no idea what they were for. Other than the filters however, there was one other piece of equipment that Alisson recognized. Marmel had shown them a special compass, one that gauged Black Energy levels. There were no working ones in Scratskoslovotskaya, else him and Celis would’ve been equipped with one, but Marmel nevertheless told them to keep a look out for the counters. They found a whole box of them, an unexpected but useful find. They were small, rectangular things, each marked with a display that had compass that pointed to three colors along with illegible writing. Green, yellow, and red, Alisson assumed that red was probably the more dangerous part of the spectrum, with green being safe.
Celis and him each grabbed one, and after fumbling with the handheld devices for a moment, found switches that powered them on. The compass points of the counters wavered for a moment, before settling in on the yellow part of the display, making distinct clicking noises.
Satisfied with their simple operation of the artifacts, the both of them powered them back down for safe keeping, and continued on.
With a wide open, dark space before them, Alisson thought that now would be a good place to use that magic needle spell that Eufrozina had given them. Would. The both of them couldn’t use it, unfortunately. It seemed their Theresa Scale wasn’t high enough, or as the hermit had put it, their authority level.
Using Enhérejär as a guide, going in whatever direction it expanded in, they walked down the empty streets of the dark, underground city. It was narrow passage that they found themselves in – certainly not the whole city, but rather just a single street, covered on two sides by walls of snow and the occasional building poking out of them.
Warily eyeing every black window and nook generated by the mixture of building and snow, they walked down the perfectly straight road, finding more of those metal wagons along the way, but not finding anything of note inside of them. They didn’t bother to search the insides of any structures up until this point, but the road before them promptly ended with the wall of a building.
It hosted a large, warehouse door. Near the large door, and around the wall at the end of the street in general, was a sight far different from that of the rest of the empty town. This part of the road had some semblance of human life. Rudimentary fortifications. That’s all Alisson could identify them as. There were barricades of rotted wood, piles of sandbags, and empty metal brass cylinders scattered across the ground. There were many holes all around the area as well, like somebody had shot a few hundred Pictunee spells at the area, though not with the same penetration.
On some of the sandbags, and abandoned on the ground near piles of brass cylinders, were odd objects, vaguely resembling that imbued magic item that Alisson had stolen from a thug in Scratskoslovotskaya. Though these were far longer, bulkier, and gave off a more menacing look.
Some kind of battle took place here. Long, long ago. Its defenders may yet still man their stations.
Him and Celis stepped through the area, tip toeing around the emplacements and fortified positions, careful to not slip on any of the brass shells.
Hugging the wall, near to the door, was a large object that Alisson had a hard time identifying. He flashed his lights over it several times, squinting at it. It looked like an amalgamation of pipes condensed into the shape of a square, all fixed atop wheels like it was meant to be moved around like a wheelbarrow. Cables ran from the object along the floor, into the nearby wall.
The was something about it that Alisson felt was important, it just looked different than the surrounding waste, this looked like some sort of important tool. Perhaps they could harvest its power, and to that end, perhaps these fortifications were here to protect it if it was really so important.
Alisson examined the machine, determining it to indeed me some sort of mechanical instrument. There was a pulley on the side of it, with a red handle. It was odd how bright the handle was, and it was smooth to the touch, made of some kind of odd material. It looked to be in perfect condition, unlike the rusting metal. Alisson’s brow piqued, how was such a flimsy, light substance more durable in the test of time than metal?
Upon further inspection, he found that the pulley was attached to a long cord. Alisson pulled the cord, thinking that it would open some sort of compartment, but without realizing it, he ended up activating the machine. The object whirred to life, started to rumble suddenly and emit this loud, angry, repeating cackle. Alisson stumbled back with a yelp despite himself. Smoke puffed up from one of the machine’s many pipes, and the entire thing vibrated violently, though its vibration was contained to its rusted steel frame.
Following the supposed activation of the machine, a few lights suddenly winked on above the door. They were red, and due to all the dust on the lenses and rotting steel surrounding them, Alisson didn’t actually think them to be lights. So, this was some sort of magic generator then, if those were magic lights wired to this thing. He looked back down the road, but saw no other lights turn on. This generator must’ve only provided power to this building.
Alisson flicked his head to Celis, and they continued on into the building at the end of the road. Its large door was now illuminated by the dull red lights, which buzzed lowly, being the only noise in the whole street. Alisson lifted the large warehouse door, it slid up and into the ceiling, folding in on itself with a loud rumble, giving some resistance along the way. The inside of the warehouse-like building was just that – a warehouse. There were tall rows of shelves and boxes piled high. One glance was enough to tell that the warehouse was empty of whatever it was built to store however – wood pallets and boxes lay shattered across the ground, their contents long emptied – the rows of tall metal shelves lay barren of any goods and only debris and junk littered the floor. Every now and then a few of those brass casing turned up, and he almost slipped on them. There were a few more of those red lights buzzing in the warehouse, though they were not nearly bright enough or in great enough numbers to illuminate the area.
It took a while to find any sort of way to progress, but eventually, the two of them found a stairway in one of the corners of the building, tucked away in the shadows of the red lights. It led up only a couple meters, up to kind of administrative overlook of the warehouse. A door in this room lead to another long room, which was filled with large conical objects. Each one was as wide as two horses and was two stories tall, and they lay in rows of four that seemed to stretch in an endless, evenly spaced square grid. Alisson didn’t exactly know what to make of the massive room, other than the fact that it had none of those red lights illuminating it. The dark shadows of the large, conical structures, towered over him and Celis as they passed by with their formation of light spells, wary of the cramped space that could be the prelude an ambush.
They reached the end of the long room, to be met with another one of those mana generators. It sat near a large, heavy metal door. The door ahd yellow and red decals on it that were peeling from age, still in good condition somehow despite the test of time, like the red handle on the generator.
The generator near the door was a carbon-copy of the one at the entrance to the warehouse. Alisson pulled the cord, and in much the same way as the first machine did, the generator blared to life, whirring and putting smoke. As the second generator rose to power, so too did numerous red lights around the large door near it. One single light was different from all the rest however, this one was orange, and spun, spewing rays of warm light across the wall above the door. As it spun, and as the generator rumbled, the door suddenly started to rise.
It’s weight and thickness was made immediately apparent. Alisson backed away, his weapon raised.
“The mana generators must be linked to this door then.”
Alisson remarked as the door rose. Dust was shaken from the door as it slowly opened, tearing through adjacent metal with an ear deafening screech. When suddenly, the door fell to the floor with a heavy clang, sending both him and Celis stumbling back from the shear force. The yellow spinning light was now off, and door ceased to move.
“…The hell?”
Alisson’s eyes darted around, attempting to identify the source of the sudden stoppage. The generator before them was working. However…
Alisson turned to his backside. Down the long room, he failed to identify any glow of red that had once been produced by the first generators lights, in the rooms behind them.
The first generator may not be operating any longer. What caused it to stop working? It seemed to Alisson at the door before them required the combined power of the two generators to lift. They could blow through the door, but seeing it’s thick, reinforced frame, Alisson gauged that the endeavor would either take all of their mana or several repetitions of barrages to break through. If they could just open the door the way it seemed it wanted to be opened, they could avert depleting their mana and leaving themselves potentially at risk of attack.
Alisson flicked his head to Celis, and the two of them started back down the long room to find out what the status of the first generator was, down at the front of the warehouse. It didn’t take long to backtrack, however as they went, Alisson noticed definitively that the red lights that had once been illuminated by the first generator were all blackened. It had been turned off.
They reached the entrance of the warehouse, and peaked through the door, first with their lights, and then with their bodies. Alisson looked around, not noticing anything out of the ordinary, before he looked over to the generator. He jumped surprise.
He didn’t expect anything to be moving of its own volition in this place.
Over the generator, rater, over a side of it, was limply collapsed a humanoid figure. A rotten, blackened, ripped, and by all means inorganic, but still human figure. It was a doll, a large, featureless, dirty doll. It did have facial features, however. Like its ragged, plastered-on hair, or the melting material that covered it face.
With Enhérejär raised toward the blacked doll, Alisson prodded it. It didn’t react, and so Alisson pushed it off the generator, noting just how heavy it was despite its small frame. It was no larger than him or Celis, so it was probably made of metal or something of the sort. At its joints were visible seams and ball sockets, like it was more a collection of human shaped pieces rather than a single being.
Alisson’s eyes drifted to the generator. It was off, and its cord was back in the place it was when Alisson first found it, unactive. Ignoring the doll, Alisson pulled the cord, and the generator once more came to life. Immediately, so too did the doll. It rose with surprising swiftness, but wasn’t able to make a move before Celis deftly diced off its head with a baselard. However, it continued toward Alisson reaching out its arms in a blur toward him, even though it lacked a head. Alisson sidestepped, and as he passed it, he impaled it through the heart with Enhérejär. Yet still it ceased to move; it struggled even with Enhérejär impaled through it.
Celis flashed back at the doll, cut off both of it arms with two swift strikes and then severing its legs, leaving it as just a torso. Alisson let the doll’s torso slide off his blade, watching its abdominal parts still convulsing back and forth while it was on the ground.
“What is this thing?”
Celis asked. Alisson shook his head. “That smooth shell it has, its familiar.”
Celis’s eyes widened. “A spirit?”
Alisson nodded. “My best guess. You know those two spirits Lavjoure kept around, that were brain dead? She said that they be in even worse condition without constant repair? I suppose this is that result.”
“They must be attracted to the mana generators.” Celis said, nodding.
Alisson remembered in his head the fact that the two spirits he’d met vehemently opposed the fact they were made of mana. If this doll was not made of mana, than these generators, those lights, were they also not mana? Alisson shook his head.
“I’ll stay here. Celis.” He flicked his head to the warehouse. “Go and make sure the second generator stays online, let me know when the door is opened.”
Celis nodded sternly. “Right.”
“And,” Celis stopped midturn, “Celis, these aren’t things that are too hard to deal with, but just be careful.”
She flashed a smug smile at his words and then continued on into the darkness of the warehouse, escorted by her own entourage of light spells.
I’ll open up a telepathy stream once I reach the door, then twice when its opened, and thrice if I have to retreat to you.
Celis reported. At longer distances, such as the distance to the second generator from Alisson’s position, the telepathy spell should still work, but nothing would really be able to be made out other than the fact that the mana stream would be established. A message spell would work better, but neither him nor Celis had it.
For a long while Alisson stared into the darkness before him, his weapon clenched tightly, constantly moving his lights in a sweep of the immediate area, wary for any movement. He had his training to thank for still being able to move when that doll attacked him – He was surprised to find anything moving down here, and now that he knew that the possibility existed, that calm and confidence he’d built up with his time being here was shattered, and he now could only look over the darkness with paranoia.
- - - - - - -
A telepathy spell was established with the only transmission being static. Alisson tightened the grip on his weapon.
He had been expecting any sign of confrontation in this city to come from horrific beasts or otherworldly beings, not caricatures of human beings from a bygone age.
Then, out of the darkness came scampering another doll. It only had three legs, and hobbled manically toward the generator. Its eyes were but white lights, and so was its mouth. Other protrusions on its body also produced this dull white glow. Its face, according to the lights, was wide, as if it was screaming. And so too did it sound like it was screaming. Not like a normal human, no, but in garbled bit and chunks, like its voice box phased in and out of function as it limped toward him.
Enhérejär having already formed into a cutting edge, Alisson stepped forward into the doll’s charge, lopping of its head with a single slice before following up his attack with a slice at another one of its limbs. It went tumbling past him and into the warehouse wall. Alisson rapidly approached, and was quick to cut off and sever its other limbs before tossing its torso off away a good distance.
Alisson backed away back toward the generator, sighing. He was about to turn back toward the road when he felt a hand on his shoulder.
His body jumped and he hurried to turn when he saw a face in the entirety of his vision. It was another doll, grabbing onto his back, with some sort of childlike smile. Its face was eerily reminiscent of Sylph’s. It emitted a little garbled laugh before it threw a punch into his jaw. It hit hard.
Alisson activated his Opensen immediately, a primal adrenaline wafting into his bloodstream. With an arm and his two tails, he managed to pry the tiny automaton from his back, and tossed it away a good distance. Before it could even get to its feet, Alisson flashed by it, severing on of its arms. It tried to throw another punch at him, but Alisson bobbed under it and severed its other arm. Alisson then kicked straight in the chest. It went tumbling away across the dusty ground as Alisson’s tails spun circles around themselves quickly, his chest bobbing from the surprise. He took a few deep breaths to calm himself. The spirit could barely get to its feet without its arms, but yet it did. Alisson shot a Pictun spell at it, knocking it to the floor once more as he slowly walked toward it. He then systematically cut off its legs and cut its torso in two.
The spirit didn’t spill any sort of liquid, nor did it cry out. Its shell was quite hard, but it was nothing compared to set of steel plate – Alisson could easily pierce it. Overall, it wasn’t a hard enemy to fend off against, just an unnerving one.
Thus forward more and more of the broken spirits were drawn to the generator. All of them dealt with quite easily, and before long,
- - - -
- - - -
He shoved a doll aside, and sliced off another’s head. He gave a few quick glances to the spirits around him before he turned and dashed away into the warehouse. They didn’t try to follow him. Before long, the red lights in the warehouse winked off.
Alisson made his way through the warehouse, and then through the long roomed filled with that grid of conical objects, hearing the spirits stumbling through the warehouse, clearly attracted to the second generator. He saw lights at the end of the long, conical object filled room, and knew it was Celis. Her chest was bobbing heavily, the bodies of a dozen spirits were laying across the floor at her feet. She lowered her weapons with a sigh as Alisson approached. The door was propped open with a metal girder, and was groaning in pain.
“I thought it might fall back down, even if it was all the way up, so I dragged a girder over here before I signaled you.”
So that’s why it took longer than Alisson had expected. Alisson nodded, and flicked his head toward the now open door – that girder wouldn’t hold forever. Celis really did have a gift in the form of her gut instinct.
Alisson hesitated for a moment, thinking that they were quite literally stepping into their own tomb if this door closed behind them. Alisson shook his head. Enhérejär was pointing this way, and if push came to shove, they could bore through the door with magic.
The two of them stepped to the other side, and flooded the room with lights. The room was surprisingly small. Alisson had been expecting, for such a heavy door and all those fortifications at the front of the warehouse, to find some shining and immaculate, something grand, something that shone wonder. What they found were two chairs, before some desk, or perhaps machine. Alisson didn’t know how to describe it. It had arrays of buttons and blank screens, all covered in dust with some sections rusted away entirely. Two disintegrated piles of bone lay nearby.
Alisson approached the array of protrusions. Only one thing caught his eye. One of the buttons pulsed brightly with blue. It lay in center of all the rest, and was spherical. Alisson laid a hand on the sphere, and tried inserting mana into it. Nothing happened, so Alisson twisted the sphere around for a moment until eventually shifting it downward. He heard a click.
Immediately, a change was felt in the atmosphere. A wave seemed to sound all around him, through the air, through the walls, of some hum that resonated throughout the surrounding area, passing through everything. A bright light assailed Alisson’s eyes, and he squinted. After a moment, he peeked open his eyes to see that a couple large area lights embedded in the ceiling above had winked on. They were bright, and white, a far cry from the dull red ones from before. They comfortably illuminated the room in its entirely.
The screens and buttons before him all seemed to burst to life, the buttons all taking on a rainbow of colors and the screens intensifying in color with symbols and moving pictures. With the advent of lighting, Alisson realized there were another two doors in the small room that he hadn’t noticed before, conventional, doorknob ones.
“Looks like we found a light switch.”
Celis remarked. Alisson’s eyes narrowed, and he turned around, toward the large metal door. “…More than that.”
The door that had once been struggling to crush the girder propping it up was now fully open, and girder fell harmlessly to ground. The room beyond, the one with all those cylindrical structures, was now completely illuminated by large white lamps distended from the ceiling.
All of the cylindrical towers hosted in the room were now whirring, pulsing with light from their accents. It made for quite the loud environment. It seemed like fans were rotating within them, or something of the sort.
“Ah shit…”
Alisson muttered as he spotted a few of the shambling dolls making a beeline for them through the long room. “They must want to shut it all down. If we can keep all these lights, on that’d be good for us. Unfortunately, we can’t very well sit here and defend this room.”
Celis was silent. When Alisson careened his head, he saw her press one of two buttons on the side of the large metal door. Nothing happened, so she pressed the other one. In the second that followed, the large metal door came crashing shut, making Alisson stumble back.
“Or we could just close the door behind us.” Celis pointed out with a blank face.
“I-I see…”
She walked by him with a shrug, “Work smarter, not harder.”
Alisson furrowed his mouth, and followed after her. “So then, doctor, have any idea what this does? Perhaps it can be useful…” Alisson motioned to the arrays of buttons and the screens that displayed intricate moving pictures.
Some sort of magic holograms or something. With the bright lights, the whole area seemed far more cozy, and far less ominous.
“Hell if I know.” She shrugged, but then smiled back at him, “The door was just intuition, Alisson.”
“Right…”
Her brain probably worked differently than his did. But that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing if she was able to use things in environment that Alisson would otherwise pay no mind to.
They picked one of the doors, and started done a long, well lit hallway, all the while hearing loud banging on the metal door behind them. When they reached the end of the hallway, and subsequently exited the building, they walked into a new part of the underground city. One that was far more open than the one behind them. And one, that probably due to the button Alisson had pressed, was now illuminated. Walls of snow and rock, kilometers high, surrounded the bounds of the city, and tall buildings rose into the snow above. The streets were illuminated by lamps, and for the time being, nothing moved other than him and Celis.
***