“Why did the bloody Zelyrians trap this room?” asked Felix, frowning. I scanned the area around us as best I could with my spatial eyesight to see if I could figure out the answer.
The room was massive - it seed large for the sake of being large. There were four pillars near the center of the room, and the rest of the room was empty save for traps. There were at least six tripwires in the room, and twelve pressure plates. This room did not contain a control panel for the rest of the pocket dinsion, the way I had been hoping it would.
asked Anise.
Anise acted as Sallia’s mouthpiece again, and the group paused. The idea that this room might be so kind of treasure vault or power source was interesting. It also renewed my hope that we might find a way to leave this dinsion here. I didn't fancy our odds if we had to go back through the wall of worldstriders.
With Sallia’s idea in mind, we started to search the room.
As Anise and Felix led the search, I decided to look at the murals. I was curious to know what the Zelyrians had left behind. It might give a clue what this room was for, if I was lucky.
The first picture was of a city, located sowhere… else. The way shapes in the picture seed to bleed into each other, in a way that didn’t match geotry in this dinsion. The architecture was also very different. So of the buildings defied gravity in a way that was impossible here. I suspected the first picture was of the Zelyrian ho dinsion.
The second picture was an image of the worldstriders. They appeared in the middle of the city. The Zelyrians, didn’t seem to have the sa problems that I did in targeting or harming them. I wondered if Zelyrian spellcasting circumvented the dinsional properties of worldstriders sohow. If so, Anise would make handling these creatures less of a pain in the neck once she grew up.
The Zelyrians did not take kindly to these new, dinsional invaders. The Zelyrians killed or captured the newcors to their dinsion shortly after they appeared.
Furthermore, it didn’t look like the worldstriders were particularly prepared for an invasion. They seed more like desperate refugees than ard invaders. They appeared sporadically, and when they appeared they seed to low on essence. The Zelyrian murals didn't depict very much resistance from the worldstriders. I frowned.
The idea of the worldstriders being refugees was… odd. And concerning.
The third picture was of sothing. It reminded of the living galaxy we had seen in our second world - it was a picture of an overwhelming force. Sothing that required an incredible mage or an advanced civilization to fight off. It was a picture of a giant with dozens of flaming eyes, gazing at the city from the sky. The city of impossible architecture was collapsing as the giant face scowled at it.
The flaming giant didn’t seem quite as powerful as the living galaxy. The living galaxy would have wiped out the city in monts, without any hope of escape. But it was still too hard for the Zelyrians to fight off. If the pictures were anything to go by, the Zelyrians tried and failed to kill it several tis before giving up.
I realized what the worldstriders had been running from.
The Zelyrians realized the sa.
In the next picture, the Zelyrians made a deal with the captured worldstriders. The Zelyrians would release the worldstriders, in exchange for helping the Zelyrians escape.
The next picture was of the Zelyrians and worldstriders fleeing to a new dinsion. The Zelyrians provided essence, and the worldstriders opened tears in reality. They fled across the ocean of souls, and arrived… here.
They had arrived right in the middle of the bronze age for this world. The Zelyrians had arrived with archmages, worldstrider allies, and developed steel weapons. They were few in number, but had a massive advantage in combat prowess. Furthermore, the local empires of this world were frequently at war with each other. This left them weakened, and gave the Zelyrian invaders room to grow.
The fifth mural was a picture of the Zelyrians building their empire. They played the local powers off of each other, grew in strength, and then conquered this entire continent.
That’s where things started to beco different.
The next picture showed the construction of this very pyramid. I couldn’t quite wrap my head around what I was seeing, but I suspected I was looking at the plans for this pocket dinsion. It was a picture of a hidden world in the mountains. One that had the sa impossible architecture as the Zelyrian howorld.
It was also far beyond the abilities of the Zelyrians. They couldn't ak it on their own. To make this plan a reality, the Zelyrians had turned their eyes towards their allies. The new pocket dinsion would feature two layers of reality: one for Zelyrians, and one for the worldstriders.
The details for the worldstrider's layer of reality looked odd to . There was sothing wrong with the image that I couldn't quite put my finger on. As I stared at the picture, I couldn't help but feel like the worldstrider layer of reality was more like... the jaws of a beast.
I frowned.
Was there so kind of foul play involved in the worldstrider's layer of reality? I could see how the worldstriders would be able to help with the creation of the pocket dinsion. They seed to have an innate ability to move between one dinsion and another freely.
But considering how much hatred the worldstriders had for Zelyrians now, sothing must have gone wrong. I thought of how the mural reminded of the jaws of the beast, and resisted the urge to snort.
Clearly, there had been sothing wrong with the worldstrider's layer of reality. I didn't know how the Zelyrians had done it, but I suspected the worldstrider's layer of the pocket dinsion was a trap. Sothing that hurt them, or used them, or... sothing.
I turned towards the next wall, to see how the story continued. All I saw wasa blank patch of wall staring back at . After the picture depicting the creation of this pocket dinsion, there was nothing. I had no idea how things had turned out past that point.
The worldstriders had ended up in the pocket dinsion. The Zelyrian empire had also sohow collapsed. The worldstriders also hated the Zelyrians. This pocket dinsion was also completely empty. There were no Zelyrian cities inside, and only endless darkness. This half-built pocket dinsion was the last act of the Zelyrian empire at its peak. After building this, it had gone into irreversible decline.
Had the worldstriders realized sothing was wrong with the pocket dinsion? Was I thinking too much about the picture I had seen? It was hard to judge what had happened after the last mural.
I sighed, before shaking my head.
While the murals were interesting, I still wasn’t quite sure what this pyramid was for. Was it a control room for the pocket dinsion? Was it linked to the worldstrider's layer of reality? Did it do sothing else?
As I ran over these questions in my head, Anise brightened up.
she said, staring at one of the four pillars in the room.
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