Chương 289: Chapter 285 - The Hall of Echoes

"Is this the state in all the chambers?" Scarlett asked gravely. Gaspar's reply was equally somber.

"In every chamber of the Hall that we have managed to explore, yes." Before them loomed an immense doorway, flanked by colossal doors carved out of thick stone, each inscribed with innumerable arcane symbols and ancient Zuverian script. Most of the symbols were familiar to Scarlett, marking the threshold of the Hall of Echoes. Beyond lay the first chamber, a vast, elongated space bathed in a strange ambient glow, where towering marble pillars supported the vaulted ceiling.

In the ethereal light, wispy apparitions drifted — phantoms of white and grey, flickering as if between tangibility and mist, their forms vaguely humanoid like spectral memories. They numbered in the dozens of dozens, their presence blanketing the chamber. Scarlett recognised them. They were Phantasms, and they were part of the Hall of Echoes' defence system. The issue was that their presence here was abnormal.

As far as she was aware, they should only manifest in the inner section of the Hall, not its outer chambers.

"They assail anyone who dares cross the threshold," Gaspar explained, gesturing towards the doors.

"Even if we dispel one, it reconstitutes within minutes."

"How long has this been happening?" Scarlett asked. Gaspar frowned.

"We can't be certain. The Hall of Echoes rarely sees visitors beyond the most senior mages. I was the one to discover this aberration, and that was five days ago." Scarlett turned to him in slight surprise.

"You were?" He nodded seriously.

"Yes." Her gaze lingered on him for a moment before she glanced back at the Phantasms, a crease forming between her brows.

"I see." This meant she had no way to confirm if this disturbance coincided with the Orrery's reaction following the Cabal's assault on the empire. The timing was suspicious, but without concrete evidence, she couldn't draw any definitive conclusions.

"These echoes are not to be trifled with or underestimated," a stern voice interjected from the side. Scarlett turned to a woman in immaculate white robes, her dark brown hair streaked with silver.

"We nearly lost a group of Principal Wizards trying to investigate. Their attacks thwart every attempt we make to understand this aberration." Scarlett studied her. This was Grand Wizard Jadwiga Clemmons, a supposedly renowned combat mage specialising in various forms of advanced barrier magic, which was mostly derived from the lumomancy and hydromancy schools. Beside her stood also Magister Penney, the portly man's expression betraying concern as he observed the Phantasms ahead with sweat drops on his forehead.

With them was a collection of less senior wizards in robes of every hue, ready to accompany Scarlett's own team in the investigation.

"What is it that proves so difficult?" she asked, her gaze shifting from Clemmons to Gaspar and then to Penney.

"The Rising Isle boasts three arch wizards among its ranks, does it not? Regardless of their number, are we to believe that an arch wizard would struggle against foes that even principal wizards could survive?" Grand Wizard Clemmons' lips thinned, while a deep frown showed on Gaspar's face. It was Magister Penney who finally broke the brief silence, dabbing at his forehead with a handkerchief.

"In normal circumstances, you'd likely be right, Baroness. However, I'm afraid this situation is far from ordinary. Not only are two of our Arch Wizards currently occupied with matters away from the Isle, but Arch Wizard Newbury has already tried to resolve the situation himself. The results were…alarmingly dangerous." Scarlett's eyebrows rose a fraction.

"Dangerous?" she repeated.

"Elaborate." She recalled hearing Arch Wizard Newbury's name before. If memory served, he was one of the council members who had initially opposed her cooperation with the Isle. Still, if he was a mage of that calibre, she didn't see how enemies like this proved an obstacle, no matter their numbers or regenerative abilities.

"These echoes are far more complex than they appear," Gaspar said, his gaze trained on the shimmering chamber before them.

"The Hall of Echoes is known to have some of the most intricate wards on the Rising Isle, yet even we didn't anticipate this. It appears the Hall adjusts the echoes to respond to the power of its 'intruders', adapting to match their strength. If an arch wizard enters, it would be far too dangerous for anyone of lesser rank to accompany them. Even grand wizards, like myself, face risk, but we require experienced casters and wizards to conduct an investigation under these conditions."

Scarlett watched him for a while, then turned back to observe the flitting forms of the Phantasms floating through the chamber. The ability to adapt to an opponent's strength was indeed unexpected. It bore some similarity to the defensive mechanism she was familiar with, but it wasn't quite the same. And it shouldn't extend to the Phantasms.

"Do you have any theories as to what is causing this, Baroness Hartford?" Magister Penney asked after a moment.

"Not at present," Scarlett replied.

"However, I may have a theory on where we might focus our efforts to identify the cause." She looked at Gaspar.

"Tell me, how many chambers does the Hall of Echoes contain?" He eyed her, as if sensing where this was going.

"Seven chambers," he stated gruffly. Scarlett shook her head.

"That does not align with the accounts I have found. There should be significantly more." Gaspar's frown deepened at her words, but it was Grand Wizard Clemmons who spoke next.

"Are you suggesting that the Hall harbors a concealed section, like what was found in the Astral Sanctum?"

"It is highly probable, based on my research," Scarlett replied, her gaze returning to the Phantasms. This entire situation was strange. She needed to get to the bottom of what had triggered these changes, and how it connected to her visit to the Veiled Library. She glanced briefly at her wrist, where the [Orrery of Dissonant Convergence] rested. Its long pointer was twitching erratically, jumping back and forth like a demented compass needle each time she directed it towards the Hall.

Its intensity nearly mirrored its reaction when she aimed the artifact at herself. Whatever forces were at play here, she clearly couldn't afford to underestimate them.

"We will need to enter ourselves to determine if there is anything beyond the known chambers," she declared, her tone resolute. Beside her, she noticed Gaspar turning to eye her party with a mixture of skepticism and resignation.

"That much is obvious," he said.

"I question the need for you to bring along your little… entourage for this venture, however."

"This was our agreement, Grand Wizard Hartford," Scarlett replied coolly.

"I will not be accompanying you without my retainers this time." The man held her gaze for a few seconds before looking away, seemingly conceding the argument.

"We won't be going without Scarlett either," Rosa added, drawing people's eyes. The bard offered a mischievous smile along with a dramatically nonchalant shrug.

"Just in case anyone was wondering." The comment was met with what could best be described as awkward silence from the wizards.

"… Perhaps it is best you keep your humour to yourself for now, Miss Hale," Scarlett finally said, refocusing on the chamber. She had been contemplating strategies for their approach. Their primary goal was likely the Hall of Echoes' innermost chamber, where they might uncover the source of the disturbance. The path to the Hall's inner sanctum from these first seven chambers wasn't overly complex in the game, but if they had to contend with the Phantasms at every step, it would be annoying.

She glanced to her left at the assembly of wizards. Hopefully, this group, along with three Grand Wizards and her own party, would be enough to handle whatever lay ahead. That said, if the Hall's defences truly scaled with the strength of its invaders, even the Isle's considerable magical might prove insufficient.

"Is everyone prepared?" she asked, turning her gaze to her own party, who nodded back at her.

"Of course we are," Gaspar said. The gathered wizards readied their staffs and various arcane foci, while Fynn and the others already stood poised for action. With a thought, Scarlett called upon her own equipment, a series of enchanted rings materialising on her fingers—several recently provided by the Rising Isle—while the [Crown of Flame's Benediction] settled on her forehead in its inactive state, resembling a simple white circlet.

The various buffs and enhancements sharpened her focus and filled her with energy. She gestured forward decisively.

"Then, let us begin." Without further prompting, Shin and Fynn took the lead. They stepped through the threshold into the first chamber of the Hall of Echoes just as Rosa's klert began to play a lively melody that infused them all with vigor and clarity. Scarlett heard Gaspar click his tongue as almost all the Phantasms in the chamber ceased their aimless drifting and turned towards the entrance.

An instant later, the room erupted in a dazzling array of spells—most of them alarmingly high-tier—as the echoes reacted to repel the invaders. The Isle wizards, however, were prepared, meeting the onslaught with a flurry of barriers and counter-spells. As a cacophony of elemental explosions and arcane discharges reverberated throughout the chamber, their raiding party surged forward. Shin held his ground at the front, shielded by layers of enchanted armor and the wizards' defensive spells.

Meanwhile, to the visible consternation of the Isle's wizards, Fynn threw caution to the wind and charged ahead with reckless abandon, diving straight into a cluster of Phantasms.

"Do your henchmen know no restraint?" Gaspar's exasperated voice cut through the chaos beside Scarlett. He brandished his obsidian staff, conjuring a complex array of fiery sigils that materialised above him like a constellation. The glowing runes shot forth into the chamber like a swarm of furious fireflies, intercepting several of the Phantasms' attacks while destabilising a number of the spectral figures, their forms flickering erratically where Gaspar's magic struck. You might be reading a stolen copy.

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"I often ask myself the same," Scarlett replied, her eyes never leaving the unfolding battle.

"However, Fynn has yet to disappoint me, and I believe he is far more familiar with his limits than one might assume." A low grunt of disapproval left the older wizard, but he didn't press the issue as their group focused on combating the Phantasms. Magister Penney, whom Scarlett hadn't initially pegged as a combat mage, proved to be a skilled hydromancer.

His watery constructs and elemental—glistening tendrils and figures crafted from dense liquid—swept through the chamber, disarming the Phantasms' spells and disrupting their formations. Nearby, Grand Wizard Clemmons maintained several barriers around their allies that shimmered in the air around them, aided by a cadre of white-robed wizards who bolstered her spells. Rosa simply continued her performance, the woman's enchanting melodies sustaining several charms at once.

If Scarlett were to guess, the Isle's wizards hadn't quite yet realised the strategic value a bard could provide for larger groups, particularly in prolonged skirmishes like this one. Wounds that might have hindered them were healed within seconds, while their spells were empowered in both subtle and slightly more overt ways. Since Gaspar had warned that the Phantasms inevitably reappear even after being defeated, their goal wasn't simply to clear the chamber and be done with it.

Instead, they needed to push their way forward while beating back the constant onset of attacks. With Shin and Magister Penney's elemental constructs spearheading the charge, and Fynn darting along the sides to attack Phantasms as he went, their large group slowly but steadily advanced. Scarlett, for her part, didn't actively engage in the fighting as much as the rest. Even with her gear, she didn't possess the mana reserves of most wizards present and wanted to conserve mana for the inner sections of the Hall.

For now, she only employed her pyrokinesis and hydrokinesis to interfere with the enemy spells and reduce the strain on their defences. Allyssa, meanwhile, had been assigned to distribute potions and other magical aids—provided, of course, by the Rising Isle—to the wizards. The young Shielder now carried several spatial bags along with her enchanted bandolier, prepared to hand out magical draughts to any caster who needed them.

The Phantasms they faced appeared mostly unencumbered by mana limitations, as each one cast potent spells with alarming consistency, rivaling seasoned mages and sometimes exceeding them in power. Though Gaspar and the other wizards were also dispatching them with impressive efficiency, it seemed the claims about the Hall's adaptability really hadn't been exaggerated. By the time they reached the midpoint of the first chamber, the Phantasms' numbers had somehow multiplied, their attacks growing more numerous.

Scarlett found herself wondering if her own party alone would have been able to deal with something like this. Without Grand Wizard Clemmons and her barrier specialists providing constant shields, this defence would have been nearly impossible to hold. Even with fewer Phantasms, Scarlett doubted she could have coped with these kinds of attacks for long. Beneath the relentless barrage, the Isle's wizards maintained a steady rhythm, casting spell after spell in rapid succession.

It hadn't taken long before Allyssa was fully occupied distributing mixtures — some of them rare and expensive elixirs previously unfamiliar to Scarlett, apparently created here on the Isle to combat mana exhaustion from potion overuse. The fighting remained intense as they pressed through each chamber. At one point, Scarlett began to worry that they wouldn't be able to maintain this pace, and that it was too late to turn back.

Fortunately, the seventh chamber soon lay before them, and it proved to be entirely devoid of any Phantasms. A sense of relief swept over the wizards as they caught their breath. Compared to the previous chambers, none of which served a clear purpose, the seventh chamber was a large, solemn space unfurling like a forgotten sanctum.

The air was thick with an almost tangible sense of the whispers of ages long past, and the stone walls were marked by the countless generations that had gone by, displaying rows of finely etched slabs—or steles—numbering in the hundreds. Each one was a masterpiece in its own right, inlaid with runes that glowed faintly with a silvery light.

At the far end of the chamber, looming in the dim, ambient illumination, stood several larger steles, each topped by remnants of statues—faded and weathered—likely once depicting great Zuverian mages.

"Is there a reason why we aren't being swarmed by those creepy ghost thingies anymore?" Rosa asked as their group stopped at the center of the chamber. The bard wiped the sweat from her brow, her instrument held loosely in one hand as she fished out a waterskin with the other.

"This is the Chamber of Remembrance," Gaspar replied, his voice touched with both exhaustion and a certain amount of reverence.

"It is interwoven with innumerable complex enchantments and arrays, the full purpose and intricacies of which we only barely comprehend. Likely, the Zuver who created it were forced to make it exempt from the rest of the Hall of Echoes' wards due to the inherent sensitivity of the magics here."

"Whatever the reason may be, it provides us the opportunity to rest and prepare ourselves for what comes next," Scarlett said, already moving even deeper into the chamber. Fynn followed her closely, the young man's posture tense as he watched for any sudden threats.

"So, is this where you believe the entrance to this supposed concealed section of yours is located?" Gaspar's question echoed from behind as he also seemed to trail them both.

"It would be the most probable location, yes," Scarlett replied, pausing briefly to study some of the ancient steles lining the walls. This place wasn't too different from what she remembered from the game, at least. That should make things easy. Her gaze fell on the larger steles and statues ahead, and she headed towards them with measured strides. As she approached, she stopped before the half-broken statues—three in all—each standing over a stele inscribed with lines of Zuverian script.

Gaspar and Fynn joined her as she scanned the eroded texts, but found nothing of particular interest. These were memorials to commemorate mages of the past, and the script only held vague descriptions of their accomplishments. The descriptions were interesting so far as they related to powerful Zuverian mages, but these weren't memorials to divinarches like Thainnith. And they really were vague.

One inscription merely mentioned that the mage had contributed to the advancement of certain magical techniques, fought valiantly in some battles, and established notable settlements, but it held no names or the like. Of course, there was a reason for this ambiguity. The Hall of Echoes wasn't named arbitrarily. Beyond simply being a place of memorial for dead mages, each of these steles was an artifact in its own right.

If one knew how to interact with it properly, one could supposedly uncover much more about what the mage did and achieved. They were something akin to a magical archive of the mage's existence. In the game, that had meant a pop-up window with a few pages of background lore. In this world, Scarlett wasn't quite sure how that would manifest. Not that it mattered much at the moment. As far as she was aware, each stele required a relic or artifact assigned by or related to the mage it commemorated.

Considering that many of the steles here had belonged to Zuverian mages whose very existence had been all but erased ages ago, there was essentially no way of unlocking most of their secrets anymore. She moved closer to the center stele, running her fingers along its carved surface. Her eyes shifted between the three monoliths, noting the small, uniquely positioned symbols engraved on each slab beneath the Zuverian script. She beckoned Fynn forward.

"Rotate these statues. The outer ones should face to the sides."

"Now, wait just a moment—" Gaspar began, but Fynn was already moving, scaling the first stele with ease. Ignoring the chorus of startled objections sounding out from the rest of the wizards, Fynn wrapped his arms around the dilapidated statue in a bear hug. Then, with a grunt of exertion, he twisted, and with the grinding screech of stone against stone, the statue pivoted to face left. Without pause, Fynn leapt to the right-most stele, repeating the process as if deaf to Gaspar's increasingly angered oppositions.

The wizard's protests dwindled, however, as the second statue settled into its new position and a deep rumble resonated through the chamber. Soon, a section of the adjacent wall began to shift and crumble, revealing a hidden passageway shrouded in inky darkness.

"Well done," Scarlett told Fynn, watching the new opening. The 'puzzle' here in the Hall of Echoes was far less difficult than in the Astral Sanctum, but she supposed the literal approach of physically moving the statues like this wouldn't occur to most people. For all the Isle's wizards' experience with Zuverian artifacts, they didn't have the same familiarity with the seeming arbitrariness of Zuverian puzzles that came with playing the game. Scarlett turned back to Gaspar, offering him a calm smile.

"I trust this demonstrates that requesting my presence here was not a mistake." With those words, and with Fynn leaping back down to follow her, she strode past the silent Gaspar to return to the others. Her gaze drifted once more over the steles lining the chamber walls, considering them with slight interest. For the Rising Isle, this chamber alone likely represented an invaluable trove of forgotten magical knowledge, rendered frustratingly inaccessible without the keys needed to activate most of the steles.

But the cache of forgotten knowledge wasn't the only meaning this place held to the Isle. While the Isle hadn't yet figured out all of its secrets, they had deciphered some of them. This included the method of imprinting new steles. Not every slab here bore the legacy of a Zuverian mage; some belonged to renowned Isle wizards of the past. In the game, players could even find or purchase items on the Isle to activate certain steles, unlocking spells as rewards.

A sudden thought struck her, causing Scarlett to pause mid-step. Her eyes narrowed as she studied the steles once more before turning back to Gaspar. Perhaps… She walked back to him, stopping right in front of him. Gaspar's attention lingered on the three large steles and the newly opened passageway before he finally looked at her.

"…It seems your unconventional knowledge has proven true once again, Baroness," he said slowly, a mix of what might have been reluctant admiration and persisting suspicion in his voice.

"But a warning would have been appreciated."

"I needed to examine the statues closely to be certain it would work," Scarlett said curtly.

"But let us set that aside for now. Tell me, did the mage I asked you to investigate—Arch Wizard Delmont—ever erect a memorial in the Hall of Echoes during his lifetime?" Gaspar's brow furrowed slightly as he studied her for a long moment. Finally, he gave a small nod.

"…He did." The man raised an arm, pointing towards a specific stele near the entrance.

"It's that one there. You won't be able to activate it without its paired relic, of course. I had intended to investigate that avenue once we'd resolved this current mess." Scarlett's gaze followed his gesture, settling on the indicated stele. She let her attention stay on it for several seconds.

"I see," she murmured, her voice trailing off as she began moving towards it.

"Did you not hear me?" Gaspar called after her, exasperation returning to his voice.

"There is no point in attempting to use it now."

"I heard you perfectly," Scarlett replied with little care.

"However, I still wish to examine it." Crossing the chamber, she approached the stele. As she neared, she noted that, unlike the larger steles, this one bore no visible inscriptions at all. Presumably, that was a conscious choice by the Isle's wizards to avoid damaging the artifacts. That did make them harder to identify, but she trusted Gaspar hadn't pointed her wrong. Raising a hand, she traced her fingers over the cold stone, following its contours.

While it was far from a certainty, it had occurred to her that the information contained inside this stele could hold the key to completing Arlene's quest. If the item the woman had sent her to find was important to Delmont, it wasn't impossible to learn more about it through this, right? So if Gaspar could find some way to activate it, she'd be one step closer to achieving her goal here. … But that would have to wait until after she'd unraveled whatever was going on here in the Hall of Echoes.

"Uh, Scarlett?" Rosa's loud voice interrupted her thoughts.

"What's with the light?" Scarlett turned, arching a brow in the bard's direction. Rosa, now seated on the ground along with the others in a brief reprieve, pointed to Scarlett's forehead.

"Your tiara-replacement thing is glowing." Frowning, Scarlett glanced up, noticing for the first time a faint white luminescence emanating from the [Crown of Flame's Benediction]. …What was that about? And was it getting brighter? That didn't resemble its usual appearance when she drew upon its powers. Suddenly, the air beside her flashed and distorted as the Emberling popped into existence. The fiery fox coalesced just in front of the stone stele. Scarlett stared at it.

"…How—?" Her words were cut short as both the stele and the Emberling erupted in a blinding flash. A sphere of radiant energy expanded from the stone, enveloping her in its embrace as her world turned white.