CHAPTER 25 - THE DARK OCEAN
Levan knelt on a cold beach of dark black and blue sand.
It was desolate.
Dark and desolate.
Moonlight painted the black sand, cascading from a celestial body much larger and closer than the moon that hung above the sky in the world of Garrow’s Claim.
He stumbled to his feet, looking around for the portal he had come from.
Despite the urgency of this task, Levan stopped in his tracks and held his breath, staring out into the distance.
Chills ran down his spine.
The Temples.
Floating Temples, hovering in the air—and Levan knew that they were temples, with a knowledge he couldn’t explain—dominated the landscape.
The closest, and smallest, no more than twelve feet to a side.
The nearest temple was a few meters away, half-buried in the sand.
It had the shape of an inverted pyramid, and looked like it was made of bismuth—an M.C. Escher staircase of crystal cubes; a pile of fractal, rectangular metal the color of oil sheen on water, in an upside-down pyramid shape. The metallic edges reflected green and red and purple with the light of the imposing moon.
At the top level of the upside-down pyramid was a pool of dark water. He couldn’t see the portal he’d come from, but the colors were close. He heard voices from beneath that still water, the sounds of Burton and his Lads calling out for him. The calls were muted, and distant.
He stepped closer.
The sounds were fading.
They died without protest.
“Can you hear me?” Levan asked. “Hey! Hey! Can you hear me?!”
He yelled as loud as he dared, but every noise he made was the only sound in the otherwise mute world.
He gazed wearily at the pool of the bismuth temple, keeping as much of a distance as he could.
Should I try to travel back through?
But there was no “sense” of portal here.
Just still, dark, stagnant waters.
Unlike the ocean and the wet sand of the beach, the water on the highest layer of the temple didn’t even reflect the light of the moon.
Levan gazed up, controlling his breathing.
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Try not to panic.
Try not to panic.
He frowned.
There are no planetary rings here, he realized.
Good.
Yes, good.
Be calm.
Be inquisitive.
You can handle this.
You can—
Levan’s attempt at casual control died.
His eyes found a temple in the distance, and his breath caught. His heart felt like someone had grabbed it with cold-bladed hands.
Oh, no.
Oh, no.
I don’t…I don’t like this.
Please, no.
Like the miniature temple buried in the sand next to him, this faraway temple was an upside-down step-pyramid.
Like the miniature temple buried in the sand next to him, the faraway temple was made of the chromatic, headache-inducing haze bismuth colors.
Unlike the temple buried in the sand next to him…
This temple was not miniature.
The faraway temple was unimaginably large.
How many miles away is it?
The massive temple drifted through the air and seemed to…look at him.
Chills ran down Levan’s arms, and his heart paused.
It was something out of science fiction, yet something out of Lovecraft all the same.
The Lost One’s Temple, of scale unimaginable, but at least the size of a small city, was turning slowly to face him.
All the while, the bismuth temples congregated, drifted, and patrolled—half-dead observers of their long-dead realm.
He turned slowly in a full circle.
He let out a slow breath.
He was alone.
All alone on the beach of dark blue sand, with the strange moon, and the—
Wait a second.
“Codex?” Levan whispered suddenly. He had to hear some kind of sound. The silence was…he had to break it.
“Codex, are you there?”
For a long moment, there was no response.
[ C o d e x ]
Levan’s heart calmed slightly. He wasn’t completely alone.
[ C o d e x > P l a n ar T ran sf er C om p l e t e ]
“Codex?” Levan asked again.
A line of sand, a lonely strip, stretched on endlessly ahead and behind him.
Then, to one side, the endless sea, dark—if not darker—than the sand on the beach. Waves crawled along the surface like fatal victims, slowly spreading towards him before falling once more to join the main body of water.
Opposite the dark ocean was a spreading plateau of dark pools and the tree-like mushroom stalks.
His thoughts shifted.
Codex was back.
[ Codex | Chosen Soul | Emberlaine Planes ]
“Are you okay?” Levan asked, before the Codex offered an explanation.
[ I have….successfully transferred with you | Chosen Soul > My Purpose | XXQO||| | ]
“What happened?” he asked. “Did I do something wrong? Did I—”
Levan stopped, and stopped the Codex from saying something either.
One of the pools—not the one he’d come from, but another farther along the beach- began to stir, water lapping up over the bismuth.
Levan took one last longing look at the portal he’d come from.
[ Portal closure successful ], the Codex confirmed.
Whooo, Levan thought, we did it. Yaaaaaay.
He just wanted to be back. He just wanted to get back to Garrow’s Claim.
Not Earth? A small voice in his head wondered, but he ignored it.
He could make a mad dash for it, swan dive into the heart of that bismuth, hoping it would lead him back out again.
The main group will close the big ones, our job is the small ones, he remembered Burton saying. What if that other prick had closed the portal already? What if Rose and the main soldiery had closed the big ones?
There were six larger bismuth pyramids, about fifteen feet across. No telling which of those had the two “big” portals.
A nail emerged from the portal, and a claw attached. A Lost One, pulling his way up.
No good options.
But if the portals were already closed, and he swan-dove straight into a nest of Lost Ones underwater…
Levan didn’t like making fear-based decisions.
But that’s how you go, isn’t it?
He moved, silently as he could, away from the beach and the ocean, away from the structures that lined it, and towards the plateau on the other side.
