Chương 109: Chapter 2 - Serel

"Wow…" A breath slipped from Serel as she stared up at the Marrowvault looming before them.

"So tall!"

"Sure is," Vera said with a smile, watching the girl's wide-eyed wonder. Serel turned to her, tugging her sleeve.

"How tall is it?" Vera tilted her head back, squinting at the obsidian spire that stretched toward the sky like a giant spear driven into the earth.

"I don't know, actually. Around… fifty floors, maybe? So let's say two hundred meters, give or take." The Marrowvault dwarfed every other structure in the city, an unmistakable landmark in the Mistvale Reaches. Despite its black, almost glassy sheen that set it apart from the city's many bone-carved buildings up close, it was supposed to have been made from marrowbone. Vera glanced back down. Serel was frowning slightly now, lips moving as if trying to measure what 'two hundred meters' really meant.

After a long moment she looked up again.

"Mommy, how tall is that?"

"Well, about as tall as that." Vera pointed right back at the spire. Serel's mouth scrunched into an annoyed pout.

"That's not what I asked." Vera laughed lightly.

"Alright, fine. Imagine stacking a hundred of me on top of each other. Or stretching me out a hundred times taller. That's about how tall." That picture cracked through the girl's pout, her face lighting up with a helpless giggle. Vera reached over to ruffle her currently short black hair before turning forward again. She'd promised Serel she'd show her the Marrowvault up close, and here they were. But the real wonder wasn't above. The true Marrowvault lay beneath.

They stood in a broad plaza ringed by solemn, high-brow buildings, with the spire anchored at its far end. This was the central district, perched on one of the city's elevated regions and girdled by a circle of sanctum towers—none as tall as the Marrowvault, but impressive enough in their own right. The plaza wasn't crowded, though its share of dignified traffic moved through.

These were mostly people in fancier clothing, some servants trailing along, and a couple of carriages broad enough they'd never have fit down the narrow streets Vera and Serel had walked earlier in the day. Vera gave Serel a small nudge, and together they crossed the square toward the spire. Her visit to Hollowstone Table had been less inconspicuous than she'd hoped, but in the end it had worked out surprisingly well.

The Vice-master showing up had worried her at first, but he'd been far more reasonable than she would have expected of that place. And more crucially, he hadn't recognized her. She'd left with a writ and a contract that gave her what she needed to access the Marrowvault. A convenient way to close the day, all things considered. As they drew closer, the cobbled ground was broken by darker veins of smooth stone.

A long, wide stair climbed toward the entrance, flanked by tall statues carved in the likeness of titanic beasts. From what Vera remembered of the game, the aboveground spire of the Marrowvault was little more than ornament. It served very little official capacity beyond being the formal entrance to the ossuary below. Two guards in bone-plated armor stood by the opening, their helms fashioned like fanged skulls.

They gave Vera and Serel little more than a cursory glance as the pair passed into the vaulted entry hall. Inside, the chamber opened wide, lined with more statues—though these were more worn and neglected compared to those at the threshold. The ceiling was gone entirely, giving way to a hollow shaft that stretched into shadow high above. At the chamber's center stood a bank of open shafts and lifts, great platforms suspended by thick chains and iron scaffolds.

A group of workers waited near one of the larger shafts, the air vibrating faintly as Resonance bled through an array of sigil-marked engines hauling several thick cables up from the depths. Vera watched with some interest. The game had never bothered properly showing lift mechanics, so this was the first she saw of this. It made her realize just how little she actually understood of this world's artificing. There were similar sigil-arrays back at Sablewatch Hollow.

Maybe she could study one of those more closely sometime. Or ask Caldrin. The rising lift groaned into view, bearing a team of laborers smeared in bone-dust, their clothes patched and reinforced with straps and harnesses for hauling gear. Serel leaned slightly, watching them with open curiosity.

"Who are they, Mommy?" she asked. Vera eyed their rough outfits, and the bundles strapped across their backs.

"Bonewrights, I think."

"What's that?"

"They're the ones who go down into the ossuary to harvest and process marrowbone and other materials. Like miners. Most of those buildings you've been gawking at today probably started as raw chunks they dragged up from below."

"Really?" Serel's eyes widened, awe sparking in them.

"Though I don't know for sure," Vera added.

"These might just be scouters, or apprentices, or something similar." They looked a lot like the NPC laborers she remembered from the game, with their bundles and gear, but she thought the bonewright guilds had their own sanctioned access to the Marrowvault. And this group didn't look like they were hauling any big finds back. She shifted her focus as she and Serel reached one of the smaller lifts. A man in neat, official garb had noticed them and was walking over from another lift to intercept them.

"Can I help you?"

"I'm from Hollowstone Table," Vera said, tugging back her sleeve just enough to show the writband on her wrist but not the sigil-scars. A metal circlet of dull steel, etched with interlocking symbols and inlaid with patterns in gray and white. She'd been registered the same rank as Han—a Resonant. Two steps down from the highest, but probably higher than most. She also produced the parchment contract she'd been given.

"I'm here to deal with your Servitor problem." The official accepted the document, scanning it carefully before handing it back. Then his gaze flicked down to Serel.

"…And the child?" Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

"She's a bit young to deal with Servitors." His brow furrowed.

"…I meant what is she doing here? Is she coming with you?"

"Yeah. Nothing says she can't, right? As long as the Servitors get dealt with." Vera hadn't told the Table that Serel would be joining her. She assumed they'd assume otherwise. But her real purpose here was to explore the ossuary and to show what it was like for Serel. The Servitors were just the excuse. She'd clean them up quickly, then wander. The man's stare lingered. He seemed to weigh what to do with this situation. Finally, though, he gave a short exhale and seemed to accept that he didn't care much.

He waved over a worker.

"The Servitors are in the Atrament Section. You won't take this lift. Use lift four. Once you're down, you're not permitted to leave that section."

"Alright." She followed as he led them to a slightly larger platform. The worker joined them at its controls and tugged a series of levers, and thin currents of Resonance glimmered through some form of pulley engine. The official motioned for Vera and Serel to step on. They did. With a groan, the lift shuddered and began to descend. The man gave them one last long look as they sank into shadow, then turned away. Darkness soon swallowed them.

Vera felt Serel edging closer, and she shifted almost unconsciously to guide the girl in front of her, arms settling across her shoulders.

"Don't worry. It'll be dark for a while, but there's light down there."

"… Okay," came the small reply. Vera glanced down at the faint outline in her arms. She hadn't considered it before, but she wondered if Serel was afraid of the dark. That was a pretty common thing for kids, right? The platform gave the occasional creak beneath their feet as it sank, steady if not entirely smooth. A faint wind whispered through the hollow shaft, broken at intervals by pulses of Resonance that throbbed from below like a weak heartbeat.

The dark continuously grew thicker, until eventually, it just broke. They passed a horizontal seam in the wall, a great open slit allowing them a glimpse into one of the ossuary chambers beyond. Serel gasped, and Vera let herself drink in the sight. The space was absolutely massive—a vaulted hall carved of bone and black shale, rib-like struts spanning wall to wall. Pale lights shimmered at intervals, partially illuminating heaps of colossal skeletal remains piled or arranged along the ground in cracked tiers.

Some of the shapes were too large, too alien in shape to feel like anything that had ever lived. Vera could faintly see Resonance coiling off them. Then stone closed in again, swallowing the sight. The lift descended further. Another seam came, this one peering into a gallery of sloping passageways and pale walkways, walls engraved with sigils and various old symbols relating to different divinities. The seam passed, and darkness returned. After several more glimpses like that, a dull glow began to rise from below.

The lift slowed. They arrived in a smaller, more enclosed chamber. There were no vaults here, or titanic remains. Just a narrow staging area, with sealed archways leading deeper into the ossuary. Dim white lights flickered along the walls, and the place looked entirely deserted. The platform shuddered to a complete halt. Serel tilted her face up into the dark shaft they'd come from.

"Mommy, those skeletons were so big…"

"Mm. They were."

"What are they?"

"Good question." Vera was quiet for a beat.

"Probably a lot of things. Monsters. Godbeasts. Avatars of gods. Buried and preserved—relics of an age where the impossible must have been common…" Really, of all the surreal things she'd seen since arriving here, trying to truly grasp the gravity of this world's history was the hardest. To her, it was still, in some corner of her mind, just a game. But the sheer profundity and magnitude of what must have unfolded to actually bring all of this myth and tradition into place…

She wasn't sure she even wanted to try properly conceptualizing all of that. It seemed easier to see it all as a set piece, the way she was used to.

"Anyway, before we start daydreaming about all that, let's handle our business first. Then we can do whatever we want." She extended a hand, and Stillwake shimmered into existence in her grasp. Resonance surged, coalescing into a pale sigil before her. Mark of the Stillbound Veil. Threads unraveled outward—thin, silken strands of energy weaving into a radial web that spread through stone and air alike.

Oddly enough, almost everything down here seemed to ping faintly back into her awareness, though maybe that was because the place itself pulsed faintly with ambient Resonance. She ignored it and let the web stretch. Unlike the time she'd scouted for the Hollowmaw Sentinels, no small animals or vermin appeared in her perception. There wasn't anything alive at all, actually. Not until she picked up a cluster of larger shapes, their Resonance concentrated in one spot and something just a touch more foul.

Those were her targets, most likely. Still, she didn't stop after finding them. Her sigil-scars prickled beneath glove and sleeve as she funneled more power in, pushing the Mark further. She wanted to see how far she could reach. A few other presences flickered at the very edge of her awareness. Some felt vaguely human, like Serel's presence, others more bestial. The beast-like ones weren't many, and most were scattered. She pushed harder. Maybe she could blanket the entire Marrowvault.

The pings continued growing, blurring together in the ambient Resonance and becoming harder to tell apart. Still, nothing felt distinct enough for her to pay it much attention. The Resonance drain eventually reached a level where she knew it would drain her if she held it for too long, so she was just about to end it when her brow tightened. Something odd had stirred far, far below.

How far was hard to tell since distance didn't quite translate with this Mark, but it was so deep she wasn't sure if it even belonged to the Marrowvault. A very large mass of… presences? Could it be a cavern full of insects or something like that? But the impressions hadn't felt that small. She filed it away. First came the Servitors.

"Serel, you won't need to worry while I'm here, but we need a few ground rules before we continue." She crouched down to meet the girl's eyes.

"Do you know what that means?" Serel shook her head.

"No…"

"It means rules you follow above everything else. They're very important. Understand?" This time, Serel nodded.

"Mmm."

"Good. Rule one: don't go near anything that might seem even slightly dangerous unless I say so. Okay?"

"Okay."

"Rule two: no fighting on your own. If you want to learn later, we'll teach you. But down here, I handle all of it. Got it?"

"Okay."

"Alright, good. Rule three: if you feel scared or in danger, call for me. Even if it's small. We always play it safe here." Serel nodded firmly.

"Okay!"

"Perfect." Vera patted her head.

"We're not actually here to fight for real, though, so try not to be too disappointed if I don't put on much of a show." She stood, letting Stillwake fall through the air. Mark of Hollow Reach. Space split without ceremony. A slit opened, lined with Hollow runes that writhed like reaching hands. Vera took Serel's hand and stepped through. Darkness immediately surrounded them, but her Vaultring activated. A fist-sized crystalline orb appeared above her palm, veined with pale silver threads.

One of Kaldrith's Lumen Stones. It floated up, and a powerful glow spilled outward, somehow not blinding in its intensity. The light revealed dozens of emaciated forms circling them in a large chamber. Semi-humanoid, cobbled from bone fragments and brittle joints, ribcages fused like twisted chimes and faces hidden behind blank masks. Heads snapped toward them in jerks, and the air filled with a chorus of grating, whispering hums. The Shriekbound Servitors. Vera frowned. They looked worse in reality.

Definitely not something a child should see, in hindsight. Stillwake cut once in a wide horizontal arc, trailing ghostlight. Crescent Wake. A moment later, every single Servitor split apart and collapsed. Vera covered Serel's eyes until the last body hit the stone, then she pulled them back through the Mark of Hollow Reach and into the previous chamber. Serel blinked as Vera lowered her hand.

"Mommy… what happened? Is it done?"

"Yeah." Vera cracked her neck.

"It's done. They're not much of a threat, those guys." Level 100 mobs, usually. She'd had the urge to drag out the fight, maybe test a few things, but with Serel here and so many packed into one room, efficiency felt best.

"Oh, but the rules still apply." She gave the girl a look.

"Don't forget." Serel straightened, serious.

"I haven't!"

"Good. Great, even. Proud of you. Now—" Vera glanced between the lift that led back up and the rest of the space. A smile formed on her lips.

"Do you want to explore this place for real?"