The echo of footsteps rolled through the halls, the patter of snare drums that were the centipede’s legs joined by the heavier, slower thuds of Noah’s own steps. It filled the darkness of the arching ceilings overhead with the heavy feeling of imnse emptiness.
Noah did everything he could not to gawk. He was still trying to project an air of control, and his focus couldn’t afford to split when his mind was as frayed as it was. But even with three different versions of himself all honed in on marching deeper into the Lost Citadel, he couldn’t help but stare at what, at so point in ti, must have been grand halls.
This was no cave network or ancient catacomb. It was — or at least, it had been — beautiful. Massive banners hung from the ceiling, tattered and faded. Noah couldn’t even begin to imagine how difficult it had been to make them. They had clearly been tapestries at so point, but any traces of design upon their surface had long since been eaten away by the years, and only faint traces of their once-red color still persisted.
Even the walls themselves had been a piece of art at so point in the past. Traces of gold still lingered from where it had traced around the edges of the carefully selected stones. Sobody had gone through a great deal of effort to make this place beautiful.
Fat load of good it had done them.
Pillars ran throughout the hall, their great marble surfaces cracked and broken. Only a few of them remained standing. They had once supported the ceiling, but now Noah suspected they didn’t support much of anything. The pillars were held together by nothing more than the great purpose that they had once born. Even the slightest of touches was liable to send them crashing to the ground.
Doors lined the sides of the hall, all much more normally sized than the one he’d entered through, but rubble had blocked them all off. Unless he wanted to go digging through the clearly unstable stone… the only way to advance was forward.
Neither Noah nor the centipede spoke again as they advanced. The sound of their footsteps was the only thing that accompanied them. Beyond deep gouges in the floor and walls that marked the Devourer’s passing, no traces of the great beast were visible.
It was as if it had vanished.
Noah wasn’t particularly bothered. He didn’t care much about the Devourer. It was just another monster. Another brick wall in his path to victory. And right now, when his solution to just about everything was bringing a magical sledgehamr to it, one more wall wasn’t really that much of a threat at all.
The path sloped, taking Noah and the centipede through a winding pathway deeper into the earth. They passed by dozens of other passages as they continued. A number of them actually seed rather usable, but the centipede didn’t even give a second glance in their direction. That worked just fine for Noah.
Whatever they were, they clearly weren’t the main path. And if he was going to figure anything out about where he’d ended up and how he could find Moxie, Lee, and the others again, he was going to need to find the heart of this place.
A library. A core. So kind of records. Anything, really. He just needed information.
And, for what it was worth, it seed like the centipede knew where it was going. It forged ahead at a steady path. No matter how terrifying the Devourer or anything within the Lost Citadel may have been… Noah was closer.
And he was far less patient.
“How much farther?” Noah asked. “Where are we going?”
“The Heart,” the Centipede replied, its chittering words terse with fear — or perhaps that was simply the stolen voice causing it so trouble. Noah still wasn’t sure how it had learned to talk. Perhaps it had literally ripped out Sebastian’s voice box.
That was a problem for another ti and another Noah.
They continued on, delving deeper and deeper through the winding halls. Never once did the Lost Citadel lose its grandiose nature. Its creators hadn’t spared any expenses. The tattered banners weren’t just reserved for the entry hall. The faded river of old, musty cloth stretched deep, clearly once as extravagant here as they had been at the start.
Noah wasn’t sure how long they walked. He was already bad enough at keeping track of ti under normal circumstances. Now, with flickers of the Line still dancing in and out of his vision, with the cracks gnawing at his soul and white void filling gaps within him like putty, it was all he could do to keep his mind from crumbling apart like a sandcastle upon a stormy beach shore.
And then the centipede ca to a halt before one of the side passages. This one was a little larger than many of the others had been, with extruding designs protruding from around the entryway.
It didn’t pause to inspect anything. The centipede just went in, and Noah followed after it. They continued into the darkness. But this new passageway didn’t make them wait for long. After no more than just a few turns deeper into the earth, it yawned open to drop them off upon a platform built into the wall and suspended above a sea of darkness.
Noah couldn’t think of any other word to describe it. A wide span of stone stretched out before him, several dozen paces in every direction away from the wall and the door they’d stepped through. The only thing upon its surface was a single podium. And beyond that was nothing. The darkness in the room was so thick that he couldn’t make anything out beyond the edge of the platform.
This wasn’t a magical darkness. Noah had seen more than enough of that to recognize it. Whatever this shadow was, it was simply from such a complete and utter lack of light that even the flickers of the Line shimring through his vision couldn’t illuminate it to his eyes.
Taken from , this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
The Centipede chittered uneasily. “Heart.”
Noah squinted into the shadows waiting before him. There was nothing within them to find. The only thing in the room aside from them was the stone podium at the edge of the platform. Even in his current state, it wasn’t difficult to tell what the Centipede was waiting for him to interact with.
He strode across the platform and over to the waiting protrusion. The darkness wasn’t enough to conceal the faintest hints of an Imbuent upon the stone. Age and dust had covered much of the lines, and the shadows certainly didn’t help with visual clarity.
What was this place? So manner of control room? Surely not. That would have been deeper, and the main path ran for much longer. This is sothing else.
Noah brushed his hand across the surface of the podium, trying to reveal so of the patterns that had been Imbued upon it.
A spark of energy leapt up the instant his palm touched the stone. It sizzled against his skin. Noah yanked his hand back, but it was too late. Hot white light sliced across the surface of the stone like the sun breaking free from behind a thick bed of gray storm clouds.
The lines slashed across the podium, twisting down into the platform at Noah’s feet. A rumble shook the ground. Debris and dust rained down from the ceiling. And then, deep within the shadows of the room beyond where Noah stood, the lines raced into being.
They wove up in a flash, illuminating a massive stone formation looming in the center of the room in their embrace. It was wide at the base, easily the width of a small city block, but twisted together into a point at the top almost like an inverted stone tornado.
The glowing white lines reached the peak of the strange mountain, an orb of burning white light snapped into being. The light sputtered for a mont. Then it swiveled, coiling lines rolling through its bright surface to form features. Noah raised his hands before his face and squinted at it through the sudden harsh light.
The orb stretched at its sides ever so slightly, turning ovular. A dark spot appeared in its center. Then it blinked.
This wasn’t an orb.
It was an eye.
“Access Point 4 has been activated.” A tallic voice grated from sowhere within the eye. Each word ca smoother than the last, as years of disuse were being shaved away the longer it spoke. “Attempting to establish connection to Heart Point.”
There was a short pause. Then the eye sputtered, a candle in the wind. A blaring screech rolled through the room, driving into Noah’s ears like a spike. He hissed, clapping his hands over his head, but the eye was already speaking.
“Connection failed. The Heart’s imbuents are disconnected from the grid. Attempting to establish connection to the backup grid.”
This ti, Noah managed to clap his hands over his ears before the screeching warning noise cut through the air once more.
“Connection failed. This Access Point is cut off from the rest of the Citadel. Researcher, locate your imdiate supervisor imdiately. The Citadel is likely to have sustained critical damage.”
Noah braced himself, but no further noises ca. He slowly lowered his hands from his ears, staring at the glowing eye. It seed to be watching him.
“Where are we?” Noah asked.
“This is Access Point 4. Casual na: Library,” the eye replied.
Well, isn’t that lucky? A library… that has to have so records in it, right? And this thing doesn’t seem to recognize the fact that I’m not one of its researchers. That ans it should help , right?
“Do you have access to records?” Noah asked. “Of the Citadel. Where is it located?”
“I am unable to assist you in this query. Connection to the Heart failed. Queries outside the scope of this Library are impossible. It is recomnded that you find a supervisor.”
Noah blinked.
“How many Libraries are there in the Citadel? Surely you know that. Access Points. How many of those are there?”
“Seven hundred and fifty as of the final connection report in my mory,” the eye reported. “None of them are accessible. The grid is down.”
Holy fuck. There are 750 libraries? Scratch the luck. I’d have been lucky not to find one… and it looks like this one doesn’t have shit in terms of records. Goddamn it.
“Are you aware of the locations of other Access Points?” Noah asked. Then he paused, a new thought striking him. “How much power do you have left? Can you remain active?”
“The personal reserves of this Access Point are undamaged. There is no expected termination date for this location. I am unaware of the physical locations of other Access Points. This information is beyond this Access Point’s purpose and requires a query to the Heart.”
A self-sustaining Imbuent, then? Shit. That’s advanced, especially for sothing this big. But fat load of good this thing is.
“What do you have, then?” Noah asked. “What is this Access Point’s purpose?”
“Access Point 4’s primary directive is to function as a Runic Research Library,” the eye responded. “These functions are still active. They have not been impacted by the damage of the grid, but it is suggested that this researcher contact a supervisor imdiately.”
Holy shit. Rune research? Like… books of combinations and the like? There’s no way I can pass that up. Even if this thing is useless, this stuff is the research that they were doing outside Arbalest. It’s invaluable, isn’t it? And if I could get my hands on enough Space Runes, I might be able to just teleport out of here.
“Activate the primary directive,” Noah said. “Do you have runes on—”
A rumble ran through the room. More dust rained down from the ceiling. Noah took a step back — and a massive hand rose up over the edge of the platform. Veins of burning white pulsed along its tal surface. The hand was easily as large as Noah was, and it wasn’t alone. A second one slamd down on the other side of the platform.
An enormous golem rose up between Noah and the looming tower. Only its upper half made it up past the darkness. But that alone was more than enough to loom more than three tis Noah’s height.
The entire thing was made of polished silver, covered with so many imbuents that it was practically impossible to find a single patch of un-modified tal. Its head was the helm of a dieval knight, and the only spot of light upon it that wasn’t white were its eyes, which each burned a cherry red.
A deep whir rose from within the golem. Then a wave of force slamd into Noah, sending him and the centipede skidding back several feet. Pressure bore down on him, threatening to crush his domain.
Noah’s eyes went wide. There was no mistaking this feeling.
Rune Force.
The tal golem had Rune Force.
“Primary directive activated,” the eye reported from behind the golem as the whir of chanical parts filled the air. Coils of white magic spun out from within the golem as the imbuents covering it powered up and its molten eyes focused on him. “Research objective: Survival.”
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