Chương 185: Chapter 45: All Too Human

Selena pressed on, followed in silence by Samira, whose expression revealed how uneasy she felt surrounded by corpses. Selena could only hear her muttering a prayer under her breath. —Ey Xudanê her tiştê ronî, wan bibe warê xwe. Giyanê min bilind bike, ronahiya te dê rê nîşanî min bide û ez ê di oasisa pîroz a aramiyê de aştiyê bibînim. Surprised by what she had heard "Lord of all that is luminous, lead them to your abode.

Hold my soul high, your light will guide me, and I shall find peace in the blessed oasis of calm" the countess turned and looked at her. Samira was restless, able to speak only with an expression of near embarrassment upon her face. —We are forbidden from showing disrespect to the dead —the Sandstrohm native explained— Offering a prayer for them is the least I can do. Fjora, in comparison, had not changed her expression since the day before.

It was obvious that to the warrior, death, bodies, and their remains were nothing more than the natural consequence of a life lived by the sword, by war, and by the axe. They walked for what felt like endless hours, the only sound being that of their own footsteps and the distant dripping of water. At last, they reached a point where the passage ended at a wall of dark, still water. A small opening in the ceiling, level with the surface, permitted the breathing of stale air.

A new sign, bright and authoritative, read:"Do not pass: risk of flooding and collapse." Selena looked at it, then looked at the water. Her intuition, her perception of the Void, pulled at her with an almost physical force, an irresistible magnet reaching out from the depths on the other side. She did not think twice. —Take my things —she told Samira, handing over her notes and the lamp. Then, she turned to Fjora— Let's go. Fjora nodded without question. Both stepped into the water.

The cold was a brutal shock, frigid as the heart of the mountain, instantly stealing their breath; the Khelganor, for her part, appeared almost comfortable with the temperature. They swam through the opening, following a submerged tunnel that turned sharply at times and narrowed dangerously at others. Selena placed blind trust in her internal compass, allowing herself to be led by the mysterious pull.

After a few minutes of swimming in near-total darkness, they emerged into a space where the water gave way to a small pebble shore. They were in another cave, completely isolated and, most importantly, dry. Yet it was also pitch black, with no lamps or fissures of light. Though Selena could not see her, she smiled in the direction where she had heard Fjora. —Don't worry —she said, her voice echoing in the enclosed chamber— I will provide light.

She turned the burnished bronze ring on her left hand, the practical gift from the King, an artifact of invaluable worth. A point of pure white light was born at the tip of her finger, then expanded, not like a flame, but as an even emanation filling the entire chamber with daylight clarity, casting no shadows, as if the sun itself were trapped in the stone. —A keepsake from the dungeon —Selena explained to the now-visible Fjora, whose blue eyes reflected the light in surprise— As well as a gift from His Majesty.

She winked at her; a gesture of complicity forged through shared perils. The Nordic woman smiled. They moved forward; the cave consisted of a single long gallery that ended at a stone slab that appeared to have dislodged from the ceiling, blocking the path. Working together with a strain of muscle and stone, they managed to move the heavy barrier just enough to squeeze through. The room revealed before them was unlike anything seen thus far. The walls were not bare; they preserved paintings.

A black dye, made from charcoal and some binder that had withstood millennia of sealed moisture, covered long sections. Upon that black backdrop, painted in a reddish-ochre pigment that gleamed under the magical light, were words. It was Veritasilba, but fluid and urgent, like the writing of a diary born of desperation. In the center of the room, sitting on the ground with his back against the wall, was a solitary skeleton. He did not lie flat; he was seated, as though he had waited there, watchful, until the end.

Selena approached the walls, her heart pounding heavily. She began to read, forcing her comprehension through sheer repetition and the context of madness.

"My time approaches..." She lost the thread as the pictograms tangled into strange combinations.

"It was a mistake... to learn in both ways... I will corrupt when I die... because of that..." Through intuition and context guided by Sulic's advice, the pieces fell into place.

"I am the priest... I hope to meet Bashir when I die..." Then, her gaze fell upon the final word. It was not merely written at the end, but repeated over and over, erratically and obsessively across all the walls, sometimes large, sometimes small, scratched in desperation:"PROTECT THEM." Selena sank onto the dusty ground in front of the priest's skeleton. Emotion formed a tight knot in her throat. —He locked himself in —she said softly.

It was directed toward Fjora, who watched her with curiosity and a touch of concern— He locked himself in here, far away from everyone, to keep them safe from what he was becoming... But he ended up killing them all the same. Indirectly. She took a deep breath and thought to herself. He was a Resonant. One who learned both paths, just as Isolde warned. Exhaling slowly, bit by bit, the narrative thread grew clearer. In doing so, he left a subtle taint of corruption...

a disease that seeped out and spread throughout the entire ruin. They all died by his hand. It was terrifyingly clear, an intimate drama of power and guilt, sealed beneath tons of rock. Then, she felt the pull once more, stronger and more personal. It originated from the skeleton's right hand. She drew closer, and among the fragile finger bones, she saw a ring. It was not made of metal, but of a smooth, opaque black stone that held no shine.

She touched it without thinking, and a surge of sensations hit her, not as a vision, but as raw, pure emotion: a profound, abysmal exhaustion that weighed upon every bone, followed by a heavy burden upon her shoulders, as if carrying the weight of every life lost in the caves above. She knew it instantly: it was a Resonant artifact. The object the priest had carried when he died, the vessel that had absorbed his essence from the Void, his dominant power, and... his guilt. This text was taken from Royal Road.

Help the author by reading the original version there. A new intuition, cold and practical, surfaced within her: Perhaps I can put the others to sleep. Without hesitation, and with silent respect toward the skeleton that had attempted and failed to be a shield, she gripped the black stone ring more firmly. It was cold, colder than the rock of the cavern. She stowed it in a small pocket of her bag, one more secret to add to her growing collection.

Later, much later, after mapping out a meticulous mental layout and swimming back through the frigid tunnel, they reunited with Samira. Selena described the route in detail, and Samira transcribed it onto a new map draft. Upon leaving the ruins, with the golden light of sunset crowning the peaks, Selena went directly to Sulic. She handed him the now-tangible, precisely drawn map. —I found the origin of the epidemic that killed them —she announced, keeping her tone professional, like a student reporting a discovery.

Sulic opened his mouth only to close it quickly, his eyes holding a million questions, but Selena continued before he could speak. —A sick man, their priest, who tried to protect them by locking himself away. I do not fully understand Veritasilba, but I followed the clues, using the advice you gave me yesterday about intuiting context. It is interesting to discover why they died. —She paused, adding as a logistical note— By the way, to get there, one must pass through a flooded area. Quite cold.

There were things she could not mention: the black stone ring, the echo, the corruption, or the artifact now resting in her bag. That was a secret of state, as was everything connected to the Void—a secret that, like so many others, now belonged solely to her. The man nodded in surprise; his eyes narrowed in a mix of admiration and professional fatigue. —I told you that you have talent —he muttered, settling back into his wooden chair— In truth, no one has wanted to explore down there before.

Not just out of fear, but because it is dark, the water is freezing, and, well... without a concrete guide, we would die fairly quickly. He let out a sigh laden with years of accumulated caution and frustration. —A few years ago, a man named Bramis found a solution through alchemy. Certain decomposing fish generated light, which proved useful to us, but no one wanted to lead the first expedition.

After all, spending too much time in those waters makes the chances of dying extremely high, and finding anything on the other side was far from guaranteed. —He smiled slowly, a dry yet genuine smile that briefly lit up his weathered face— Only someone young and reckless would attempt it. I am glad you returned safely. They then proceeded to draft notes on the discovery. The map existed, of course, but Selena's initial expedition needed to be logged for future archaeological study.

Every detail from the width of the submerged tunnel and the water temperature to the arrangement of the skeletons and the structure of the sealed chamber was recorded with the meticulousness of someone who knows she is writing the first chapter of a story that others will read long after.

In gratitude, Sulic handed her a notebook he himself had kept over years of studying the ruins a volume bound in worn leather whose pages were filled not only with transcriptions, but with intuitions, corrections, and small marginal sketches reflecting a slow, painfully earned mastery. —It details information, but also the context of several difficult pictograms —he explained, passing her the book with an almost reverent gesture— Sometimes the meaning is not in the line itself, but in what surrounds it.

The following day, she was unable to explore. They had closed the main entrance following her discovery, temporarily sealing access while those in charge evaluated the safety and significance of the find.

It was her final day in Ashkharum, and with a mix of resignation and urgency, Selena set about reading Sulic's book, determined to resolve what was truly written on the altar wall, the one describing their god and gatherings, whose partial translation had left her feeling as though she had merely scraped the surface of an ocean of meaning. Sitting in a corner of the base building with a heavy blanket draped over her shoulders to combat the chill filtering through the wooden gaps, Selena turned the pages one by one.

Some were covered in hasty annotations, scribbled arrows, and question marks; others simply displayed long passages transcribed in Veritasilba, featuring marginal notes written in Sulic's neat, somewhat hopeless hand:"I suppose I will learn to read it better with time, which is why I decided to keep this." It was the record of a silent battle, that of a man confronting a language that resisted being deciphered. Until she reached what she was searching for.

The book began by describing how Sulic had arrived at the temple room in the exact same manner as Selena: following hunches, overcoming fear in certain areas, and relying on the dim light of his lamp. Then, page after page, the altar wall was transcribed in its entirety in Veritasilba, and beneath it, written in the scholarly handwriting Sulic reserved for his most significant finds, was the translated text.

"Gatherings in Khelan, Thyll, and Anor, from sunrise until the sun is at its highest," read the temple schedule for the days she knew. She kept reading:"If the believer wishes, leave the offering upon the altar; in Thyll, at midday, those from the entire week shall be burned." She smiled as the thought occurred to her: a system of offerings and purification recognizable in virtually any civilization, a ritual connecting the mundane with the divine.

Then she reached the portion she had previously translated, but now Sulic's words gave full shape to the fragments she had only glimpsed. The translation continued:"When Bashir shaped the world, he did so with the power to mold. Reality already existed, yet by the will of his mind he carved it into all that is known. But his strength was never endless; even a god must pay the cost of rest.

Unable to awaken, the Almighty Lord was forced into a long slumber, and from his dreams another reality was born, one far more chaotic, untouched by either good or evil. From that realm came forth a new race of humankind. Through resolve and tireless effort, they crossed into our own to rule the lands before them. A fragment of the primal power to shape was bestowed upon their blood, a gift beyond compare.

Under their guidance, humanity received fire to endure, water to drink, air to breathe, and healing to overcome affliction. Yet every blessing demands a price. Their descendants perished in the bloom of youth, their lives cut short without mercy. Then Bashir, the Great Lord, awakened to save them. But the curse laid upon him was to consume without end. With selfless resolve and silent resignation, he accepted his fate. He ate and never ceased to eat.

Hunger consumed the one who had once given form to the world, until his very being faded away. And with him vanished his creation, both swallowed by the all-devouring Void." Selena took a deep breath, a sigh that carried away centuries of dust and the weight of conjectures. She did not know what to think. Bashir... an imagined Resonant, perhaps? Or merely a deity created to justify the incomprehensible?

What she held no doubt about was that his "descendants" were simply ordinary Resonants: men capable of conjuring fire from nothing with a silent word, women who could make water spring forth even in the most extreme heat, and ultimately, magical healing to close wounds. Truly, it was the same ancient pattern: a civilization creating an entire religion to rationalize phenomena it did not understand. It did not surprise her, and she shook her head slowly in a gesture of intellectual resignation.

After all, humans always shared those patterns, whether on Earth, in Erabergh, or even within the Veritasilba of these forgotten caves. The clearest clue that it referred to magic, beyond the narrative itself, was the price to be paid and the devouring hunger. It was true: any spell, whether spoken, written, or imagined, always exacted a toll in life. That was why his descendants died younger. Sustaining the priest's power as a divine prophet, using the echo to construct the myth around society...

yet a sharp, vivid memory crossed her mind: the priest's words carved into the wall of his self-imposed tomb.

"Protect them." She sighed, a sound heavy with weary compassion. I suppose that even amid manipulation, a desperate man will always seek to protect what he loves or what he has built, she thought. Even in the midst of the corruption his power had sown, that Resonant had tried, in his final act of will, to serve as a shield. An exercise in futility, yet human. All too human.