"You're like a ghost, Dani," he said, running a finger along her wing. Dyani was also technically a ghost too. Problem was, he didn't have a car to go up to Greater Sudbury again. He'd have to run the whole time.
Erin's voice suddenly crackled through his phone. "Cease your dawdling. The middle temple's instruments are clear, and I see you waste time with the young Overseer. Time grows shorter by the moment. The fragment awaits your retrieval, and you waste precious seconds on frivolity."
"I'm climbing as fast as I can." Gale rolled his eyes. He was climbing as leisurely as he could, but he didn't want to say that.
"Climb faster."
The stone steps spiralled upward in a tight coil. After fifteen minutes of continuous climbing, Gale's legs weren't even remotely tired. That was one good thing about awakening. Even in his apartment with the forever broken elevator, he didn't seem to mind the climb up to his apartment.
Arriving at a landing, he spotted a doorway carved into the wall. This must be the second level, and curiosity pulled hard at him. Stepping through the doorway, he found himself in a large circular chamber.
The room was bathed in soft golden light that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at once. Scattered across the floor were dozens of intricately crafted metal and stone gears of various sizes. Some were as small as his palm, others larger than his entire body. They laid scattered around the whole room, seemingly with no pattern as if someone just threw it there randomly.
At the centre of the room stood a solitary statue. A boy in a hooded cloak, his face hidden except for a mischievous smile visible beneath the hood. Looking under the hood, the statue wasn't intricate enough to have anything but the smile. In the statue's right hand, he held an oversized wrench. The most striking feature, though, were the cog wheels and gears that floated around him, suspended in mid-air, slowly rotating as if caught in an invisible mechanism.
Gale pulled out his phone and pushed the PTT button. "Erin, what's with the statue of the boy with all the gears around him?"
Erin replied immediately. "That is Asain, the Second Ancient. That is all."
"That's all? Just 'that's Asain' and nothing else? What's with the floating gears? Why's he holding a wrench?"
"Because that is who he is," Erin said monotonously. "Now proceed to the third level where Vianne's fragment awaits."
"I'm not moving until you explain more about this," Gale walked closer to examine the statue. "You told me about Aurumn downstairs. Why the cold shoulder for this guy?"
"This is useless prattle," Erin said. "Make haste, child. Stop throwing this tantrum over trivial matters."
Gale stood his ground. "Not trivial to me. I want to understand what I'm looking at. This is the perfect time to learn."
Focusing on the statue, Gale used Analyze.
[Statue of Asain]
[Description: An idiot with a wrench.]
"Seriously?" Gale sighed, rubbing his temples. Of course Vianne would program the Analyze like that. She was the one that gave him the skill after all. He plunked down onto the floor, legs crossed, and placed his phone in front of him.
"I'm sitting here until you give me a real explanation. Talk."
Erin exhaled exaggeratedly and said, "Fine. Asain is the Ancient of logic and rules. His domain encompasses all things mechanical, technological, and systematic. Logic gates, machinery, computational structures, all of which fall under his purview. The Architect who designed this tomb hails from a bloodline with roots tracing back to the family that originates from Asain's blood."
Gale picked up a small gear near his foot, turning it over in his hand. Not only was the gear perfectly crafted in a way that didn't even make sense to him, he noticed the billions of intricate microscopic lines etched all over the gear.
The gear dematerialized into his space storage. Might as well keep it for Ollie. On the space storage, it had named itself as 'Perfect Flawless Amazing Indestructible Gear'. Looks like Vianne isn't the only one with weird habits.
Clearing his throat, Gale spoke, "So there are actual noble families in Dainv society? With bloodlines and inheritance? Sounds like something from a fantasy book."
"Do not compare this to your mere fantasy literature," Erin said. "To answer your question, noble houses once existed within Dainv society. The 86 Families Era marked the height of their influence. That system was abolished after half of the families fell. You have your answer now. Proceed upward."
"Wait, if Asain is all about knowledge of mechanics, and Vianne is about knowledge too... what's the difference? They sound pretty similar to me."
"How DARE you blaspheme the name of Vianne with such a comparison! You equate a monkey with a wrench to the noble scholar of cosmic wisdom!" Erin suddenly shouted, causing Gale to flinch and shrink back slightly.
"Vianne is the embodiment of pure knowledge, and that is the understanding of reality's deepest structures! She comprehends the very fabric of existence, the mathematical patterns that underlie all creation! Her domain is the abstract, the theoretical, the universal truths that govern our reality! Asain merely... tinkers. He plays with toys, with physical manifestations, with crude implementations of ideas he cannot fully grasp. He builds machines without understanding why they work. He follows rules without comprehending their purpose. His is the domain of the practical, the limited, the small-minded!"
Gale bit his lip to keep from laughing. He'd never heard Erin so animated. As she continued talking, his mind wandered off to a memory of the past.
It was similar to when Ms. Molly had a whole tirade about knitting. It was just one question about why there was a yarn ball on her desk that spun her into a mad explanation about how to knit.
After a couple more minutes, Erin seemed to finally run out of steam. After a moment of heavy breathing through the speaker, she spoke in a calmer tone that was completely 180 degrees from what she had just said. "They are as different as the stars are from the mud beneath your feet. Now, if you are quite satisfied with your education on matters far beyond your comprehension, I suggest you continue to the third level. Immediately."
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Gale stood up. "Thanks for the explanation. I had no idea you felt so strongly about it."
"Just. Go. Up," Erin said through what sounded like clenched teeth.
Gale headed back to the staircase. As amusing as it was to see Erin finally get riled up, this whole situation with the rift thing was still a life and death scenario. Back to the mission.
Before he stepped back outside to the staircase, he glanced back at Asain's statue. Somehow, it seemed like it was smirking at him as if it was alive. A boy with gears and technology stuff looking like the personification of mischief? Sounds and looks like someone he knew.
Once back in the stairwell, Gale reached up and touched Dani at the top of her head. Her wings fluttered slightly in response.
"Sorry, Dani. Time to go back." He willed Dani to go back, unsummoning her. Her translucent body soon faded out of existence. There was no need to keep her active when the inside of the temple didn't seem to have much of the fleshy growths, which would mean fewer of those eye watcher things. Probably.
Gale continued the climb. The staircase spiralled upwards more, seemingly endless that it was getting almost boring just looking at the stone steps. After another 15 minutes of climbing, he reached another landing with a door carved into the wall. This was probably Vianne's floor.
But his eyes travelled upward, where the stairs continued toward a fourth level. Curiosity tugged at him again.
He pulled out his phone and pushed the PTT button. "Erin, would it be worth checking out the fourth floor to see Cev's statue before I grab the fragment?"
"Your question vexes me," Erin replied. "It is of no use. There is no item there that will help you. The statues are just statues, nothing else. The Sword of Cev resides in the Courage Sector."
Gale peeked up the staircase. "So you're saying there's nothing important up there?"
"Must I repeat myself? It is a statue, nothing more. A stone representation of the Fourth Ancient, holding no value to our current objectives."
"Right, nothing important," Gale pocketed his phone, trying to hide a smile. Who knows if Erin could see him with that much detail?
If there was one thing he'd learned over the years, it was that when someone insisted something wasn't worth looking at, that was exactly when you should look. Dad had taught him that. When someone tells you not to look at something, they've got something to hide.
Gale bounded up the steps, this time sprinting three or four steps at a time as much as the tight staircase could allow him. After a short climb, he reached the fourth landing.
A door stood before him, identical to the others below. Without hesitation, Gale pushed it open and stepped through.
The chamber beyond was circular like the others, but darker. No golden light illuminated this space. Instead, a bluish glow emanated from the ceiling.
Looking up, Gale saw why. Stone tentacles and tendrils snaked across the ceiling, carved with such detail that it looked like an optical illusion that they moved whenever he turned his head around or looked elsewhere. They converged at the centre of the room. Under where the tendrils converged was a statue.
The statue depicted a robed figure, taller than the others he'd seen below. The face remained hidden beneath a deep hood, revealing nothing of the man beneath. Unlike Asain with his floating gears or Aurumn with her flames, this figure stood utterly still and solemn.
Around the statue, embedded at random intervals all over the chamber stood eight sculpted stone swords. Each blade was thrust into the stone floor. The swords themselves looked worn enough that their details appeared too eroded to be recognized as weapons.
Gale approached slowly, his eyes fixed on the hooded statue. This was supposedly Cev. The edgy looking guy he saw in the book, the source of his family's bloodline.
He pulled out his phone and pressed the PTT button to ask Erin about this room. Nothing happened. He pressed it again. Still nothing.
Checking his phone more closely, he tried to open other apps, but none of the apps were responding to his touch. Even the clock wasn't changing. It should've changed at least once from his fiddling with the phone. Instead, it stayed stuck at 4:14 PM.
"What the hell?" Gale muttered.
This had happened before, in the Ann family library. Time itself seemed to freeze around him.
Gale approached Cev's statue cautiously. As he drew closer, a pressure emanated from the statue. The pressure created a weight on his shoulders until it had forced him to sit on the floor directly in front of it.
You have come here, but there is no answer which you seek in this place.
A voice rolled through the chamber. It was the familiar voice he heard from the Ann Family Library when he tried to open that book. A voice so low that it shook his entire being.
"Why did you tell me to hide last time?" Gale asked suddenly, not really thinking about what to ask. The words seemed to just come out of his mouth. "When we spoke in the library, you said to stay low. Why not just tell Rachel everything? Why all the secrecy?"
The stars. They're watching. Do not give yourself away.
"But everyone keeps telling me the opposite," Gale said, frustration making his voice crack. "Erin says I should accept my power. Rachel's grandmother wants me to connect with her family. Even Ollie thinks I should stop holding back."
Gale looked up further under the hood of Cev's statue. "How am I supposed to hide while making connections? You can't have it both ways."
The last Dainv warrior. You must hide it until you have reached the peak.
"So what, I can't be honest with anyone? No real friends, no family to care for until I reach some mythical 'peak' you talk about?" Gale's fingers dug into his thighs. "That's bullshit. Even my parents taught me all these skills, all these ways to survive, only to abandon me in the end."
The duty called to them. The tide neared. To hide you, they fought. You must go. Follow Vianne's disciple.
The weight on Gale's shoulder suddenly released all at once. He scrambled to his feet, getting closer to the statue. "Wait! That's it? That's all you're giving me? I need more than cryptic bullshit! Why can't you just tell me straight?"
Gale fell onto his knees, looking at his hands. "I don't want to… keep feeling pain. I don't want to keep getting hurt. I just wanna live my life…"
His words echoed in the solemn chamber. However, Cev's statue remained silent. Even the bluish glow of the tendrils in the ceiling disappeared. It was just him, and a dead statue.
"ANSWER ME!" Gale shouted.
Nothing.
Gale stood up from the statue's base. He kicked at the base of the statue. Stupid Cev. Stupid everyone, not telling him anything. Constantly putting his life on the line wasn't something he even signed up for.
Of course he'd get no straight answers. When had life ever given him the easy way out? Not in the orphanage, not in the Eclipsed. Heck, not even when he got back on Earth. It was always the same goddamned difficult choices. Just once, he wanted someone to lay it all out plainly… right. That was supposed to be Erin's job.
His phone suddenly crackled with Erin's voice. "Where are you? The readings from your location changed. You are not on the third level."
"I got curious. Decided to check out the fourth floor."
"I explicitly instructed you not to waste time!" Erin said. "The fragment awaits on the third level. Return there immediately."
"Yeah, yeah, I hear you." Gale dragged his feet toward the door. "Not like I have a choice anyway."
He made his way back down the steps, feet thudding against the stone. When he reached the third floor landing, Gale paused. He stood before the doorway, hand resting on the stone. Even Vianne never really guided him back in that Dainv ship.
Just get this over with, I guess.
Gale pushed the door open and stepped through. Unlike the circular chambers above and below, this room was rectangular with a flat ceiling. Book-lined shelves covered every wall from floor to ceiling. The comforting smell of old paper and books hit him immediately. If only he could just read books forever, just like before.
At the centre of the room stood a woman's statue. The figure wore flowing robes that seemed to be in a half state of being a lab coat and ornamental robes. Her expression was clear from where he was, a somber smile that looked at him with a slight hint of warmth as if she understood what he was going through.
In her right hand, she held a scroll that unfurled to the floor, covered in symbols too small for Gale to read from where he stood. In her left arm perched an owl with two eyes. The right eye seemed to glow faintly.
That must be it. It looked exactly like the one he had gotten before.
He stepped closer, examining the owl. Just like before, all he had to do was touch it to complete the mission.
Analyze.
[Vianne's Origin Fragment]
[Description: A fragment of the Ancient Vianne's consciousness.]
Of course it wouldn't give him much detail. Life never did give up easy answers.
Gale reached out his hand to it. The moment his skin made contact, the room plunged into darkness. The bookshelves and the whole room all vanished out of sight. Looking up at the sky, he saw the stars and galaxies spinning backwards. Millions or maybe even billions of years passed by in the blink of an eye. Solar systems formed. Supernovas exploded silently in the background.
[Acquired Vianne's Origin Fragment]
[Mission Complete.]
[Reward: 1 skill point.]
[Origin Synchronization in Progress...]