The wind ceases.

It is a gradual change, but before we know it, there’s not even the slightest of breeze disturbing the air we fly through. The waters are equally still. Lacking so much as a ripple, they surround the the hundreds of pyramids like a silver mirror. If I had not seen the depths or pillars that lurk below, I would believe the double-sided pyramids were floating.

The very picture it creates is reminiscent of that other world I’d seen through the window of the chthonic island. Which isn’t all that comforting, considering what lies here.

As we glide over the pyramid array, it is clear that this place is unnatural in how pristine everything is. The air and ocean are never this calm. The pyramids themselves don’t hold a speck of dust across their thresholds, and it gives a perfect view to the inscriptions that wind around the massive stairs that lead up each four face.

There are no people here. No life. But unlike the ancient vessels to the west of the wasteland where all life faded with time, there is no place the creators of this place could have lived. Well, unless you include the ocean depths. Around each pyramid, the pillars that hold them do not stretch far enough for even the smallest village to form, so it is unlikely there was a civilisation around these pyramids that time has left no trace of.

I’m tempted to fly down and get a better look at the engravings etched through every surface, but the four large peaks rising over the horizon ahead is far more tempting. Better we head to the centre of this array first. While the inscriptions of the pyramids we pass are interesting, they are clearly inactive. Not a drop of hyle passing through their lines.

That changes almost before I think it.

As we spear through the sky and we close in on the four massive pyramids that make every other we’ve seen until now seem like earthen stubs, the structures we pass begin to glow with the soft light of hyle. The light isn’t apparent when viewing the pyramids directly. Only in the reflection of the perfectly flat waters does the spectrum of colour become known. The inscriptions are still active, and the light exuding from them gradually grows stronger as we near the four structures that loom over the rest.

Are these inscriptions what keep the area so perfectly untouched? I want to dive down and look. A glance at Leal reveals she is of much the same mind. More-so even.

Still, checking out these pyramids would be akin to awing at an alicanto while the Euroclydon hunted behind you. We need not focus on anything but what is the obvious core of this structure.

Thankfully, even as the glow of the pyramids becomes visible directly, the energy thrumming through them doesn’t feel Anatlan. At least, not anything like Leal’s alternating energy or the green eyed anatla’s. Amongst the vibrant lines sweeping the pyramid surfaces, I can feel the hyle of fire burning like a raging, yet controlled inferno. There are a thousand more present, but it is only fire I feel.

“Who’d have thought this was out here all along?” Anoures comments. “So what exactly is it you’re looking for here?”

Leal looks at me, as if checking whether I want to answer the heqet. I, of course, don’t. “We’re not entirely sure,” she admits. “Something that might give us some sort of indication on what Armageddon actually is, and why Kalma and many ancient texts were certain of its coming.”

“Armageddon, huh? So the Titan Alps collapsing truly is the end of the world?” Anoures considers, before mumbling under her breath. “Would explain how active the Titans have been.”

“You’ve seen Titans?” I ask, suddenly intruding into the conversation.

“Not me,” she denies. “Though I certainly heard one when the Alps first fell. At the southern tip of our Warring Isles, we’ve lost a few dozen islands to their passage. While we suspect that two of the three events in the past year were the same being, that’s already more sightings then we’ve seen in the past hundred years.” She inclines her head, as if looking where the spoken event occurred. “Already lost two of my Jarlship Forts to those disasters. I was trying to not lose another. But, well…” Her eyes turn to my flames, but I pretend not to notice.

“We know the Anatla are the cause,” Leal continues. “But we’re not sure exactly what they are, where they come from, and what holds them back. Considering the reaction between the Blood Moon and the Collapse, we’re sure that there is some sort of barrier blocking them from freely entering our world. One that will not last.”

“So that’s what that beam was? An Anatla? Never heard of them,” the Jarl muses. “It is blatantly clear something is wrong with the world, but who would have thought the cause would be invaders? I assume these Anatla aren’t any smaller than Titans?”

“The one I saw might as well have spanned the distance between here and Riparia,” I say, remembering the sight of that virid storm. “But I don’t think comparing them is appropriate. The other world is… strange. It’s hard to say if the concept of distance even exists there.” I realise too late that I’m speaking to Anoures as if she were a friend, and quickly return my attention to the four pyramids ahead.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

Now that I’m close enough to see detail, I discover that calling them four separate structures might be wrong. The pyramids lean inwards. It’s as if a single pyramid of identical — albeit much larger — shape to the surrounding structures was sliced in half twice and spaced outward by half a kilometre. Each rises hundreds of metres into the sky. Four quarter pyramids surrounding a single point.

“So you think you might find a way to stop it here?” Both Anoures and Leal now stare ahead along with me.

“Not really,” Leal says. “If this really is what it looks like, and a sort of suppression array for whatever Anatla holds presence here, then the people who made it likely wouldn’t know a way to stop Armageddon; they would have done so themselves. Alternatively, this place is like the chthonics and the Anatla’s presence was invited by those that lived here. Then, it’s even less likely they have a way to stop what’s coming. The best we can hope for, is to learn a method of suppression.”

While Leal’s right and that would be an optimal outcome, I don’t place much faith in any inscription we learn here holding up. It does the job here for now, with the assistance of Eldest Ember, but that is unlikely to continue once the Anatla are already here. The beam during the Collapse is proof of that.

Besides, the scale of all these pyramids is immense. The construction capabilities of the ursu and the northern races is impressive, but I doubt a recreation could be achieved in any reasonable timeframe. Even with the help of the elite mages. Incorporating new — or in this case, ancient — inscriptions will not be easy, unless they can learn all the lost knowledge that might support it.

And it is obvious that these inscriptions carved into every surface of the pyramids are lost knowledge. The chthonic vessels had thick, sweeping inscription lines, but each were mostly reminiscent to those used everywhere else. If the island hadn’t collapsed, we could have brought in some ursu or pact nation mages specialising in inscriptions to come and learn what they did. We might still be able to do so with the vessels we haven’t already burned through.

But the inscriptions lining the structures below are different. They are thin, and interweave so many differing hyle types I cannot name. In the space of Leal’s body — my own is hardly consistent enough to compare any longer — a dozen different, separate paths interlock and combine. It is obvious there is something impressive down below, just waiting to be inspected. And it only makes the massive, shimmering, quarter-pyramids ahead all that more entrancing.

Usually Leal’s the only one to find excitement in the face of new inscriptions, but I cannot deny my own interest.

As we close the final stretch to the centre of this entire array, what lies between the quarter-pyramids becomes clear. In contrast to the towering rock structures around it stands a lone, small obelisk absolutely teeming with the Anatla’s energy. While the hyle flowing through the pyramids may be colourful, it is constant. The obelisk is the opposite. It radiates a shifting luminescence of alternating colour, sometimes holding a solid form, but mostly remaining incomprehensible.

The obelisk is clear. Glass, or maybe crystal. Or the Anatla’s energy has stripped whatever material created it of its opaque aspect, as with the green storm. Deep within the obelisk emanating powerful energy, lies a crack. Like a fracture in glass, it spreads from the tip to the base. It is narrow — impossible for more than a sliver of light to breach through — but it is obvious on first glance where it leads.

The world of the Anatla feels… different from the last I saw. The crack might be tight, but the alien feel of the energy is completely unlike that of the virid-eyed being. Despite the difference, it is still Anatla. That, I am certain of.

“How is it floating?” Anoures asks as I bring us down alongside one of the massive pyramids, not too close to the sheer drop where the pillar ends.

As she says, the obelisk holds suspended between the four structures. Within the ring of ranked stone that holds the pyramids aloft, there is nothing but the depths of the ocean. Nothing rises from below, or stretches out from the sides to hold the obelisk in place, so the tapered bottom ends a metre beneath the still waters. The top rises ten metres, and yet doesn’t topple or sink.

“There’s a thousand pyramids with inscriptions never seen before, and an obelisk teeming with the energy of the beings that are going to destroy our world… and you focus on how the, at most, thirty ton pillar floats?” Leal sounds incredulous. I probably shouldn’t say I thought it was impressive, too. “I’m sure even I can put together a system to float some rocks. I know Riparia has a few methods of their own.”

Retaking my old form, I step forward, intending to have a closer look, but something stops me. As soon as I put my foot ahead of me, a purple beam appears, connecting my leg to the two closest pyramids. Immediately, I explode backwards, shooting myself away from whatever defences this place has and engulfing myself around Leal protectively. I’m far too familiar with the self-destructive defences of the chthonic’s vessels.

But before I can tear us through the air again, I discover no pain through the flames that the purple hyle materialised on. In fact, when I boosted myself away, the flames that shot forward were also struck with the purple beam, creating a purple plane more akin to a wall than the lightning-like chain that first struck me.

I calm, and release my flames from around Leal. Anoures just looks at me strangely, not having moved from where I dropped her. “Shit yourself?” she asks, only the faintest of a smirk gracing the edge of her cheek.

Leal shakes her head besides me. “She can’t.” She lasts a full two seconds before she can’t suppress her smirk and turns to face away from me.

Anoures seems to find it hilarious, and bursts out laughing. Her croaky voice; grating.

I simply stare at my friend. Unbelieving. Why is Leal cracking jokes with her, at my expense?

I huff and make for the barrier again, ignoring the slight snickering I hear from the ursu’s way.