Chương 65: Chapter 141 - The Depths of the Vault

For a moment, there was silence. Then, Mirian heard Beatrice behind her asking, "Did she just…?" Briefly, there was some shouting, but she didn't care what they said. They'd follow. The only way out was through. For a moment, the forest was silent too. Then it came to life, vines and branches writhing and twisting into the strange, soulless creatures. Mirian went with the 'burn it all down' strategy.

As the abominations came leaping toward her, she embraced the form of Dusk Waves, simply so her reaction time was better. There were enough of them it was easier to maintain the disintegrating fire ray than to recast it. While she swung it around in an arc, she repeatedly used her wand of greater lightning, enhanced for burning and paralysis. She reasoned if the beasts could move, they had something biological vulnerable to seizing up. Wherever she saw movement in the brush, she let her fire blast into it.

There's so many of them, she thought. And she still couldn't see the end of the corridor. There was a flash of inky shadows, then she saw a claw emerging from the space near her head. It was like it was happening in slow motion—she could see the path it would take. She could see how the sharp bone would angle, and thought she knew about where it would carve a hole in her face. But she couldn't bring the beam around fast enough. Then, there was a ripple of force, and a force blade sliced right through the arm.

Mirian rapidly raised a kinetic shield, then looked back. Beatrice. Her precision spellwork had just saved her from her own impatience and stupidity. She'd reflect later—now, she needed to fight. The others came behind Beatrice, fire spells fanning out. Aelius was using a large-area fire wave spell that did little damage, but caused the vegetation to smolder and seemed to slow it from growing into the monstrosities.

Since the abominations lacked souls, direct magic seemed to be especially effective at ripping them apart, but they came in relentless waves. Though the charring effect of fire seemed to slow down the reconstruction of the creatures somewhat, it by no means stopped them. The forest churned like a gale was blowing through. The group advanced as quickly as they could. For minutes on end, they cast more and more spells. It was like the labyrinthine horde, but less predictable, and more relentless.

If they'd brought even a single less arcanist, Mirian was sure they would have been overwhelmed. Aelius's sorcerer only cast a single spell, but his force blades were large, powerful, and he didn't slow. Cediri drank his emergency mana elixir while Beatrice covered for him, then she drank hers.

"There!" Beatrice said.

"Through the trees. I can see the door! It's the door!" As soon as Mirian saw it, she knew what Beatrice meant. The door at the end of the hall reminded Mirian of the one down by the Divine Monument, only it didn't have the same weathered look to it. That, and as they approached, the reliefs and designs on its front subtly shifted, just like the Monument itself did. That has to be it. She redoubled her efforts.

An abomination appeared above them, its six wings covered in eyes and bone edges on its feathers and she swatted it away with a beam of fire. Two more creatures, like lions only they had no eyes and way more teeth, leapt at the group. Anticipating their dimensional shift, she sent lightning bolts through both. Aelius began to falter, his waves of fire petering out. His mage stopped casting entirely, closing his spellbook and giving the group a worried look. Mirian's own mana was nearly exhausted.

Twenty feet, she thought, as Aelius's sorcerer cut apart the brush blocking their path. She deflected another attack, but the mob of abominations was redoubling its effort. She was sure it wasn't her imagination—the beasts were growing in number. Ten feet. Three more flying abominations swooped down, and Mirian barely lanced them with the beam. A lion-like abomination suddenly was leaping through the air behind her. She spun, but felt the claws shear through her flesh. It had taken out a chunk of her shoulder.

She cut it apart, then rapidly poured soul energy into the wound to staunch the bleeding and knit back together her flesh, but that stole valuable time and focus from defending against the attack. Grimald fell to a flier and a leaper attacking him simultaneously. He could only deflect one—then he was bleeding on the ground. With three arcanists and a warrior disabled, their line began to rapidly collapse. No! she thought, and whirled to look at the door. She could make out glyphs and runes covering it.

Like the door of the Vault itself, there was one last puzzle, and they just didn't have the time. Beatrice fell next, then Aelius, ripped apart by talons and claws and rows of teeth. Cediri was suddenly surrounded, and his rapid casting of aegis and fire blades wasn't enough—a tortoise-like abomination with eyes plastered about its shell walked through his spell and bit a hole in his leg.

Mirian roared, beam of fire shearing through the abominations, sending dozens of them smoldering as they collapsed, but there were too many of them, and her aura was nearly gone. She drew Eclipse, stabbing another abomination through the face, then whipped it around to cut through another. She felt a hot lance of pain as another claw raked her thigh, then sharp talons sliced her head. She whirled, cutting, stabbing, then unleashing one last beam of fire—

"DAMNIT!" Mirian said, sitting upright in her bed.

"What? Oh no, did we sleep through an alarm? What time is it?" came Lily's panicked voice. Mirian sighed.

"Nothing." If we hadn't run out of mana… she thought. But her solution of 'get enough mana elixirs for everyone' wasn't going to work. Torrviol simply didn't have that large a stockpile of the elixirs. She'd solved that problem previously by having the merchants order more elixirs or parts to make them from Cairnmouth, but she didn't have time to wait around while they did that.

She could go down to Cairnmouth herself, but that would risk passing back through Torrviol after Troytin arrived and alerting him to her operations. Also, the extra days added to the time she needed to spend in Torrviol to ensure Troytin's plans were disrupted would give her a much later start in Frostland's Gate. She had to make it through the Vault before the Labyrinth shifted and put an entropic field between her and the entrance, and she needed every day.

I have to get things going in Frostland's Gate, but there's always a few days of preparations before we actually descend. She came up with a solution. Disguising herself as Micael again she joined as Professor Endresen's apprentice, then used that as an excuse to talk to Professor Seneca. Mirian got them both to collaborate on a project where they tried testing different magichemicals on glyph production, but what she really was after was how to best synthesize her own mana elixirs from myrvite spell organs.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. The process was actually relatively simple, but required a few specialized alchemistry synthesis machines that were delicate enough and complex enough she would have trouble replicating them. Apparently, most of them were manufactured in the tiny Florin Principality, then shipped north to Palendurio where they were sold at a much inflated rate due to the tariffs and guild monopolies involved.

Mirian spent the rest of the cycle studying alchemistry, and practiced making several mana elixirs. She also noted which species of myrvite found in the Frostlands would work best for the elixirs. It turned out, many of them. There was a reason the little outpost town brought in so much wealth. Studying alchemistry was also useful for making explosives. She found a way to make her little 'seeds of chaos' constructs even more explosive.

She also planted a magichemical bomb on the Akanan air yacht when it landed again to evacuate Troytin and the other Akanans prior to the outbreak of war. The spell engine trigger was minuscule, and she doubted they detected it before it blew off a wing of the airship. I bet you're regretting what you did to me now, she thought at the other time traveler. Of course, he was always free to not come to Torrviol, and perhaps send her a letter of apology.

Not that she'd trust anything he said, but it would at least be satisfying if he did. There was no chance that he was reformed. If the Ominian chose us by trait, I think 'stubbornness' must have been near the top, she reasoned.

And then the next cycle, she was back in Frostland's Gate, having stolen two expensive magichemical synthesis devices from the Alchemistry Building. Once back in the Labyrinth, she set them on a more careful schedule. They spent three days clearing out things like the greater labyrinthine horrors and the more mana-intensive puzzles, then, rested up and loaded with Mirian's freshly brewed mana elixirs, they made their way to the final hall. She had a new plan, too. She hadn't just made mana elixirs.

She'd made four more wands of levitation, then made Beatrice and the other strongest arcanists of the group practice.

"Drink the mana elixir at the halfway point. Beatrice, you and I will make force shields as we fly." The other three would use force and fire spells. The heavies and remaining casters would stay behind and rendezvous with them afterward. Ideally, they could be nearly to the end of the corridor before the strange soulless forest reacted. She finished going over the plan one last time, then asked, "Ready?" The group looked nervous, but she heard the chorus of yeses.

"Form up. On the count of three. One. Two. Three!" They charged out into the corridor, then rapidly accelerated. Cediri carved up the branches that were in their way, but they otherwise held their fire until the abominations started forming. It's working! Mirian thought triumphantly. There were abominations emerging from all along their route, but even with their little dimensional trick, they were lagging behind. The Labyrinth was reacting; Mirian saw abominations emerging from farther ahead.

She raised force shields around the group as they pounced, while Cediri cut them apart. Ahead, she saw the final door.

"Almost there!" she called, as Aelius's sorcerer continued to butcher the strange creatures with his force blades, littering the forest floor with limbs, wings, bone fragments and torso pieces, all of which melted into networks of gray mycelial-looking goop. Then the mushrooms and plant tendrils would rise up, knitting themselves together again, and another beast would be running toward them. They landed at the door.

"Defend my position!" Mirian shouted, eyes scouring the runes and glyphs. Like the entrance to the Vault, there were five great dials of dark stone, done in the same aesthetic style as the Mausoleum. She felt relief, realizing that she recognized all the symbols, though that didn't slow her pounding heart or stop the adrenaline. The runes here say 'life energy,' paired with a xerivar and coordinates. So move soul energy in this direction, to the coordinates.

She used energy from her soul repository, moving it in a clockwise direction. Auras of white light glowed around the carvings on the first dial. Second dial, heat energy pushed into three points simultaneously. There's the reference coordinate. She quickly calculated the distances the other coordinates marked by the glyphs would be from the reference point. Those three. She used two glyphs from her spellbook to pour heat energy into the spots. Again, the carvings lit up, this time in a soft red glow.

Force energy, twisted in a corkscrew motion, then brought straight back along two paths. She rapidly flipped through her spellbook, needing to use the two-page method of casting. Fortunately, she was well practiced in improvisation at this point. The third dial lit up with gray light. Dimly, she was aware of Beatrice shouting something along the lines of "hurry!"

Based on the squelching sound of force blades cutting flesh and the pitter-patter of abomination pieces hitting the ground, she knew the pitched battle behind her was desperate. Magnetic energy, with specific intensities. Then two more points of magnetic force on the field edge—thank the Gods Jei made us memorize the formula for estimating field size. The fourth dial lit up in a surreal violet glow.

"Damnit, Cediri's hurt! Aelius, switch to close-in fire shields. We need—" Focus! Mirian looked at the last dial, trying to ignore the din and panicked shouts behind her. Light, sent at a 23 degree angle at the irres glyph wavelength, with a second beam sent at 59 degrees at gamra wavelength. Hells, you need a myr rating of 80 just to get that! She channeled, and an ethereal orange glow illuminated the geometric patterns around the last dial. The door rumbled, ancient gears coming to life.

"It's opening!" she said, and whirled to help. But the abominations had stopped. They slunk away, melding back into the trees and bushes, becoming roots and branches. The corridor stilled, and as the last thud of the door opening echoed, an eerie silence descended. Mirian tensed. All of them did.

"Did we… did we actually do it?" Beatrice asked.

"Gods above."

"And below," Aelius said, clutching his arm where it was bleeding.

"That was too damn close."

"Worth it. Absolutely worth it," Cediri said.

"Do you realize how few descriptions we have of a Vault at this depth? Of course you do, but—I can't believe it." They entered. The last room of the Vault was ornate, or at least, as close to the concept as anything made by the Elder Gods was. Nine statues of Elder Gods stood in a semicircle around a large stone chest. By their feet lay docile looking abominations like the ones they'd just fought. The chest itself was a lot like the sarcophagi-boxes, only the carvings were so intricate.

They seemed almost fractal, like even with a stack of Professor Endresen's lenses, it would still keep getting smaller. The room was made of black and white stone, with stalactites that glimmered with light, like a chandelier made by someone who had only heard the concept described in a language they didn't speak.

"Nine. Why are there nine statues?" Aelius asked.

"That's Zomalator," Mirian said, pointing at the one with a face made up of needles. The last statue was vaguely feminine, as far as those traits actually applied to the Elder Gods. The rock of the statue was the same grayish color as her focus, with the same veins of subtle green. It was pierced by three swords, through the back with the blades protruding out her chest.

"I don't know the last one." They approached the stone chest. Mirian's palms felt sweaty, and her heart was pounding faster than when she'd been opening the door. Gently, she touched the stone lid. With that simple touch, the lid parted, the stone splitting apart and seeming to vanish into the air. The inside of the chest had a subtle golden glow to it. The chest was full of strange objects. One was a pyramidal stone lined with dozens of glyphs and runes, most of which she didn't recognize.

Another was a cylinder of transparent crystal, capped with silver metal. Inside were tiny little moth-like creatures, lined up and completely still like they'd stumbled upon an insect collection. There were geometric shapes that shifted when looked at from different angles, like the Divine Monument, but at miniature scale. There were other things too, like those resembling pieces of the golems they'd seen, or complex cubes gilded with strange metals in stranger patterns, or containers with liquids.

Strange metallic objects that looked like they might be tools, but not ones she could even begin to fathom the function of. There was one container with liquid that caught her eye. It looked exactly how the Pontiff had described it: a liquid that glowed both with violet and orange light at one angle, but glistened silver like mercury at another. Relicarium, she knew. She gingerly took the container, a smile growing on her face. Step one, she thought.