Chương 13: Beacon

He read it again with his hand pressed against the stone beside the chapel entrance. The pencil remained between his fingers, awkward against his palm. Somewhere below them, far enough away that he could not place it, a faint pressure had touched the mana left by Chloe's prototype.

"Thomas?" Marcus had crossed half the chapel while Thomas was concentrating. He stopped a pace away and waited until Thomas looked at him.

"What did you feel?"

"I'm still trying to figure that out."

"Start with what you know." Thomas looked down at the join between two stones. The pulse had followed the old mortar rather than the corridor's visible line. He could still trace it through the wall, though it weakened each time it reached a repair or a change in the stone.

"The core released more than light. Mana went into the floor and the walls while it was active. It kept moving even after Chloe pulled the slide."

"How far?"

"Past this room. Down, mostly. Some of it went back towards the workshop."

"And the other thing?" Thomas hesitated.

"Something touched it from farther along the path." Marcus glanced toward the barricade. Will was already watching them, one hand wrapped around his length of timber.

"Touched it how?"

"I don't have a better word yet."

"That's fine. Did it move toward us?"

"I lost the feeling before I could tell." Marcus breathed out through his nose and crouched to inspect the lower edge of the barricade. The cabinet and chairs had been enough to keep frightened people inside the chapel. Thomas doubted they would stop anything that had survived beneath the castle since the integration. Chloe had remained beside the prototype. Its blue-black glow had shrunk to a dim spot deep inside the holder, barely visible through the glass and ceramic.

She listened as she checked the metal slide with the back of her screwdriver.

"The frame was containing the release," she said.

"Badly, yes, but it was contained. If mana went into the floor, then it leaked through the handle." Thomas took his hand off the wall.

"The workshop test could have leaked too."

"Some heat and residual output. I didn't feel anything going into the building."

"You couldn't feel it just now either." Chloe stopped moving the screwdriver, her ire plain on her face.

"That came out badly," Thomas said.

"It came out as though you've decided I can't sense any mana and tell that the chapel is at fault."

"I haven't decided anything. The pulse travelled faster here or just with less resistance. I could follow it through the stone." Eleanor came closer, stepping around the space they had cleared for the test.

"Because this room is different?"

"Possibly." Thomas looked around the chapel: the old stone, the blocked entrance, the wounded resting along the walls. Margaret's supplies had taken over one side. Priya and Amy had made a treatment area out of folded coats and whatever clean cloth they could find. The room had been a chapel before any of them were born, then a historic space, then a place tourists entered and left according to opening hours.

Since the System arrived, it had become the part of Richmond Castle where people slept because the walls felt safer than the rest.

"My class cares about context," he said.

"Objects, places, what they were used for. This room has a stronger identity than the workshop. Shelter, prayer, burial, refuge. The prototype may have interacted with that." Chloe looked at the floor beneath the holder.

"That doesn't tell me whether I need a better base or whether every device we build in here is going to announce itself through the rest of the castle."

"No, it doesn't. We'd have to test it." Marcus looked up from the barricade.

"We are not testing anything else until we know what sensed us." Chloe's head turned toward him.

"How are we meant to know what answered without activating it again?"

"By waiting to see whether it comes here." Several people near the walls had started listening. Thomas noticed the shift in the chapel before he looked back. Conversations had thinned. Margaret had stopped sorting ration packets. Priya watched from beside Amy, though her hands kept folding a strip of cloth. Chloe lowered her voice.

"That is still a test. It's just one where we don't control anything." Marcus stood.

"I'm aware."

"If the pulse was strong enough to draw something, leaving the prototype off does not tell us whether it stopped following. Thomas said he lost it."

"I heard him."

"Then what exactly are you proposing?"

"I'm proposing that we stop treating a working light as the only problem in the room." Chloe stared at him for a moment. Her injured hand had curled against her stomach without her noticing. Priya wanted to say something, Thomas saw the doctor's expression change, but she did not interrupt yet.

"The light is going to matter," Chloe said.

"Maybe not this version. This one is awful. I know what it looks like, Marcus. I built it. But the batteries are dying, and the emergency lighting is already gone. If we stop every time the first attempt causes trouble, then we're finished." Marcus nodded toward the barricade.

"If your first attempt brings something through that door, we may also be finished."

"That isn't what I said."

"I know."

"Then stop answering as though it is!" The words came out louder than she intended, almost a shout. A child near the back of the chapel lifted his head from his mother's shoulder. Chloe saw him and pulled her voice down again.

"I'm not asking to leave it on," she said.

"I'm asking you not to make a decision before we know what the problem actually is." Margaret set the ration packet aside and joined them. She had been awake for most of the night, and her hair had come loose around her face. Thomas thought she looked more tired now that the light was off. The prototype had made the chapel ugly and blue, but for a few minutes people had been able to see what they were doing.

"We cannot put it away," she said. Marcus turned to her.

"No one has said we're putting it away."

"That is what people will hear if we stand here talking about monsters every time someone mentions switching it on." Margaret gestured toward the supplies behind her.

"We have food in three different piles because everyone brought whatever they could carry. I still don't know how much water we have because the labels are too hard to read in the dark. Amy nearly fell over Daniel's leg ten minutes ago. We used an actual torch earlier, and now the doctor is worried about ventilation in this old stone building." Priya looked down at the bandage roll, worry clear on her face.

"She is right about that." Marcus rubbed one hand over his jaw.

"I'm not asking anyone to work in darkness."

"Then we need a plan for the light," Margaret said.

"A real one. Who uses it, when they use it, how long it stays on. Otherwise people will either be too frightened to touch it, or someone will decide their reason is important enough and switch it on without telling anyone." This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it. Chloe nodded.

"That is what I'm trying to say."

"I know. You're saying it as the person who made it."

"I am the person who knows how it works."

"You know how the slide works," Margaret said.

"You don't know what it does to the castle." Chloe went quiet. Margaret looked apologetic almost immediately, but she did not take it back.

"None of us know. That's why it cannot be your decision alone." Eleanor stepped between the prototype and the group, though no one was close enough to touch it.

"We're discussing two separate things," she said.

"Whether the prototype can be used safely enough to justify the risk, and who decides when it is used. We can answer the second one now." Marcus glanced at her.

"Go on."

"Chloe operates it. No one else can fix it like she can. Thomas monitors the mana when he is available. You can order it shut down if something approaches the chapel or the room cannot be defended. Margaret and the healers will need decide when their work requires light." Priya nodded.

"I need it for examinations. I don't need it running constantly." Amy had woken fully during the discussion. She rubbed at one eye and looked toward the prototype.

"Maybe we could keep a list. Times people need it. Then Chloe doesn't have everyone asking her separately."

"That would help," Margaret said.

"Treatments first. Supplies after. Anything else waits." Chloe looked from one woman to the next.

"I also need test activations. Not many. I need to know whether changing the output changes the pulse." Marcus's expression hardened again. She lifted her unbandaged hand before he could answer.

"Listen. I can lower the output. I can move it away from the wall. I can add ceramic spacing around the base. If the pulse weakens, then I know the housing matters. If nothing changes, Thomas is probably right about the chapel."

"And while you are doing that?"

"You and Will stand at the entrance. We keep it active for less than a minute. Thomas tells us if the response comes back. If it moves closer, I shut it down." Marcus looked toward Thomas.

"Can you do that without injuring yourself more?"

"I should be able to, but it's not like I have a mana sense skill." Priya made a tired sound from the wall. Thomas turned to her.

"What?"

"You said you thought you could draw from the corridor fire, then you nearly cooked yourself from the inside."

"I'm not drawing anything in now."

"Are you certain?"

"I will not draw anything in, I promise." Priya pushed herself to her feet and walked over.

"Then I hope we can trust you at your word, young man." She took a minute to review Chloe's latest injury before wiping it away with magic.

"This too, the both of you are too reckless." After her examination on their injuries, Priya left to sit down and rest for a bit. exhaustion plastered across her features. Chloe watched her go.

"She likes you."

"I have noticed."

"No, you haven't." Marcus cut across them.

"We are getting away from the question." Thomas suspected that was deliberate on Chloe's part, though he did not point it out. Eleanor looked around the chapel.

"We use the prototype under the restrictions we just agreed on. We do one controlled activation now because something has already responded, and we need to know whether changing the output changes the signal. After that, it stays off until we have discussed the result." Marcus looked at the people along the walls. Several had started moving supplies away from the centre without being told. One man pulled a bag away from the entrance. Margaret asked two others to move Daniel farther from the path to the barricade.

"Clear the area around it," Marcus said.

"Will, with me. No one stands between us and the entrance." The movement became more organised once he gave it a purpose. Eleanor helped Margaret shift the closest supplies. Amy knelt beside Daniel and explained why they were moving him before touching his injured leg. Gareth started to stand, thought better of it when Priya looked in his direction, and dragged himself a little farther along the wall instead. Thomas watched Eleanor while she worked.

People asked her where things should go, sometimes while she was already answering someone else. She pointed, corrected, changed her mind once when Margaret showed her that one of the bags contained water. None of it looked like command from a story. It looked like site management performed in a chapel full of frightened civilians, except the health-and-safety problem now included a lamp made from a dead monster. Chloe carried the prototype several feet from the nearest wall and set it on a flat section of floor.

She checked the base, loosened one fitting, then tightened another. Her burned hand kept trying to help. Each time it did, she caught herself and moved it back into her lap. Thomas opened the maintenance log to a fresh page.

"Do we want this written down before or after?" he asked.

"Before," Margaret said from the supplies.

"If something happens, after may not be useful." Chloe gave her a look, then nodded.

"Fine. Write: operator checks slide, ceramic, base, and frame before activation." Thomas wrote it.

"Clear space around the prototype," Eleanor added.

"No loose cloth nearby."

"Nothing flammable within arm's reach," Chloe said.

"And no one moves it while it is active. I know that seems obvious, but apparently obvious things need writing down." Marcus was checking the gap beneath the cabinet.

"Maximum time?"

"Forty-five seconds for this test."

"You said a minute earlier."

"I also moved it and changed the output. Forty-five." Thomas recorded the limit.

"Shutdown if I feel movement?" he asked.

"If you feel the response moving closer," Marcus said.

"I don't want it turned off because you notice a fluctuation and aren't sure what it means."

"That may take time to distinguish."

"How much?"

"I don't know." Marcus looked at him, then toward Chloe.

"Thirty seconds unless Thomas confirms the response is stable. Absolute limit forty-five." Chloe started to argue, stopped, and bent to inspect the slide again.

"All right." The page filled with instructions that sounded temporary because they were. They left gaps. Thomas resisted the urge to make the language formal. Formal language might have made the procedure look more certain than any of them felt. When they were ready, the chapel settled slowly. People did not become silent all at once. A child whispered to his mother. Someone near the back shifted a bag across the floor.

Daniel asked Amy whether the light would call the dogs again, and Amy answered too quietly for Thomas to hear. Ordinary sounds continued as Marcus and Will took their places at the barricade. Thomas knelt beside the prototype and placed his palm on the floor. Cold stone pressed into his skin. Mana Control brought the room into sharper focus. His own reserve sat beneath his sternum. The core felt tighter, denser.

Ambient mana collected around the old walls and floor, stronger where the stone had been left undisturbed by later repairs. Chloe crouched across from him.

"Tell me when." Thomas followed the old mortar toward the wall, then down into the foundation. The last trace from the previous activation had nearly disappeared. Whatever had answered them no longer touched the path.

"Go ahead." Chloe eased the slide inward and the core caught. Blue-black light spread across the floor, weaker than before but steadier. It reached the first rows of people along the walls and left the far end of the chapel in shadow. The holder began to hum. Mana gathered at the base. Thomas felt it reach the stone and begin to move.

"Still leaking," he said.

"How much?"

"I can't measure it."

"Compared to before."

"Less, I think. It's slower." Chloe leaned closer to the housing without touching it.

"The frame is cooler." Marcus looked back from the entrance.

"Where is the pulse going?"

"Down through the floor. Some toward the workshop. Most of it is following the same route as before." Thomas traced it as far as he could. The pulse moved differently through each section of the castle. Mortar carried it. Thick stone dulled it. Where old construction met newer restoration, the flow divided and found another route. Chloe watched his face.

"Has it reached the lower section yet?"

"Almost."

"How do you know?"

"The path feels open ahead of it." She frowned but did not ask him to explain further. Twenty seconds passed. Thomas noticed Eleanor moving behind him. She was checking the open space around the device, then the entrance, then the people along the walls. Margaret had returned to the ration packets and was using the light while it lasted, reading labels aloud to a man who wrote the counts on the back of a visitor leaflet. The pressure from below returned. Thomas's hand tightened against the floor. Marcus saw it.

"What?"

"It found the pulse." The response was clearer this time. Hunger moved along the route in short, uneven surges. Thomas could not tell whether it belonged to one creature or several. It reminded him of the barghests, though those had felt heavier, each one wrapped around a core that gave its body shape.

"This feels thinner than the ones upstairs," he said.

"There may be more than one."

"Are they coming here?" Marcus asked.

"They're following the active mana." Chloe glanced at the slide.

"Twenty-eight seconds."

"Keep going," Marcus said. Thomas looked at him.

"I want to know whether they stop when it stops," Marcus said.

"Tell me if they get close enough that you can place them." Thomas returned his attention to the floor. The presences advanced, slowed, then advanced again. The path through the castle was not direct. They seemed to lose the pulse where the stone broke its continuity, then find it again.

"One has moved ahead of the others," he said.

"I still can't tell how far away."

"Thirty-five," Chloe said. The frame had begun to warm. Thomas felt the air change against his wrist. Eleanor came closer, though she remained outside the cleared space.

"Is there any reason to keep it on now?" Chloe answered while watching the holder.

"A few more seconds tells us whether the heat rises at the same rate with the lower output." Eleanor looked at Thomas.

"And the things below?"

"They are still moving." She shifted her attention to Marcus. He kept his eyes on the barricade while he considered it.

"Forty," he said.

"Then off." Chloe nodded. The leading presence sharpened. Thomas caught something inside it that made his stomach tighten: the wait before a lunge, the same held tension he had felt in the barghest cores.

"Shut it down." Chloe pulled the slide. The light weakened. Mana withdrew from the frame and the outward pulse began to collapse behind it. The presences below continued for several seconds, following what remained, then slowed. Thomas kept his palm against the floor.

"They haven't stopped completely."

"Are they still coming?" Marcus asked.

"Slower. I can feel two. Maybe three." The chapel remained quiet enough that the prototype's cooling clicks carried across the floor. Chloe looked at the housing.

"The lower output helped with the heat." Marcus turned from the entrance.

"It still drew them."

"Yes."

"Can you stop the pulse reaching the floor?"

"I don't know. I can try a thicker ceramic base. Maybe suspend the core inside the frame, so the housing touches less stone. The problem may be the light itself, or the chapel, or the core becoming active. I need separate tests for each." Eleanor crouched near the edge of the cleared area.

"Later." Chloe nodded, though her eyes remained on the prototype. Thomas sat back from the floor. The lower presences had become faint again. He could still feel them somewhere beyond the chapel, moving through the castle without enough strength to give him a clear direction. Several people around the room stiffened. ┌────────────────────────────┐ Event threshold met. Event Quest: Hold the Light Objective: Maintain an active mana source within the refuge until dawn. Reward: Minor attribute increase.

Chance to awaken refuge-related skills. └────────────────────────────┘