Chương 162: Chapter 237 - Horrors of the Depths

When Mirian reached the surface, the world seemed too bright at first, and too calm. Down in the Labyrinth, a moment's hesitation could be death. She'd needed to stay perfectly alert, or an ambush like the one she'd just survived would be lethal. She checked in on her professors, redirecting them or adding instructions as needed. Then she told them, "I'll be gone for four days. I'm going to retrieve a specialist to help our work."

There were several reasons Mirian hadn't wanted to bring Atrah Xidi up to Torrviol initially. One, the more she interacted with her father, the more likely one of the other Prophets looked into why it was so easy for her to rope the arch-necromancer into helping her. Two, it was four days of travel she'd rather use on research or exploration, and she was trying to be as efficient as possible.

Three, the revelation they were working with a scary necromancer could cause a blow-up in the Academy that would halt or destroy some of the research. The fourth reason, she had to admit, as she flew up from the Mahatan Gate to Atrah Xidi's hideout, was the one that was the most influential, the one she didn't want to admit was causing her to come up with the other reasons. She didn't want to see his face when he realized this wasn't their first reunion. He'd gone so long without seeing her.

He deserved the catharsis of their reunion. But she couldn't. Not every cycle. It would waste too much time. He understood. Gaius was smart and disciplined. He always understood. But there was that moment, that brief moment, when his emotions shone through, and it broke her heart every time she saw it. She couldn't let such simple things stop her. I need to steel myself, she thought as she flew north, siphoning the souls of the myrvites she encountered as she went.

"Naluri," her father whispered when she arrived. And then there it was again when she told him: that moment when his face fell.

"We'll talk as we fly down south," she told him, and Gaius smiled, but it wouldn't be the same. Those beautiful moments they had shared during their first reunion, the sorrow they shared together visiting her mother's tomb—that memory would be hers alone. They flew back carrying one of Gaius's undead soldiers and a satchel of ebonbloom lotuses from his garden. When they rested that evening in the middle of the desert, she told him.

"I hate that we can't have a proper reunion. That the loop means you'll never remember the one we had."

"Naluri," her father said with a smile.

"So do I. But never let that stop you. Knowing you're alive, knowing you're safe—it's a balm to my soul like no other. Remember that." She nodded.

"It hurts. How long does it take for the worst wounds to heal?"

"Some never do," he said.

"I still remember that cult who first mentored me. Saidaya and Muham especially. It was like a second family. They taught me so much." Gaius gave a sad smile.

"You can't live without losing people. After all this time, I think I like the wounds those deaths left… raw. Tender. Then I know, after all this time, that I still care about them. And I can carry them with me, here," he said, tapping his chest where his heart used to be.

"I think Granpa Irabi told me something similar. It just… it's become a heavy weight to carry. So many cycles now."

"How long?"

"Nearly twenty years in the loop," she said.

"In a few cycles, I'll have lived more of my life in this time loop than outside it."

"Five hells. You're forty-two?"

"Something like that. I lost exact track. There were a few partial loops, and variance in length introduced by whether or not a Gate was active, or how long it was active—did I explain that? Having a Gate active for only part of a loop extends the cycle a few days, but having it active for the whole loop extends it farther. Same with having multiple Gates active. The part I need to know more about is how the temporal anchors extend the cycle. They return to the Ominian, up in Their Mausoleum on Divir.

What I wonder is—can a chthonic needle like the one you have extend the cycle? Can they be made into temporal anchors? So I'm back to the Labyrinth, since I'm not going to use yours." Her father raised an eyebrow.

"You know that if you need it… my death isn't permanent, until the cycle ends. You know I'd do that for you."

"No," Mirian said in a tone that brooked no argument.

"Very well," Gaius said.

"What have you seen so far?" Mirian described the first Vault in Frostland's Gate, then her recent delve into the Torrviol.

"Oh, a voidling," her father said after she described the final fight.

"I'm impressed you killed it."

"You know about those?"

"I had to open a Vault without a time loop. I spent a lot of time doing research. These days, people like to hoard Labyrinth research records, but that wasn't always the case. The Triarchy, for all its flaws, compiled what it knew about the Labyrinth and spread it around enough that several of its records survived. I cross referenced that with the active guilds at the time. A voidling, though! Most of those are another level down. Did you find any centiscerators?" Mirian gave her father a skeptical look.

"There's no way you didn't just make that word up."

"I never encountered one, but there was a famous expedition that included one of the Triarchs. Tried to get to the 6th level. Only one of the members survived, which is the only reason we know about them. I don't have any of the scrolls anymore—long story—but I remember most of the details." On their second day of flight, Gaius regaled Mirian with everything he knew about the Labyrinth, as well as the trials he'd needed to overcome in the Vaults.

Mirian was still impressed by how efficiently he could strip the souls of nearby wildlife to power his spells. Despite all her advancements, she still had plenty to improve on. That evening, they returned through the Mahatan Gate, having stashed the mummy-soldier Gaius had brought in a large box so Mirian could study it without a bunch of annoying questions being asked. Her father approached the Gate with a sense of wonder, casting several spells as he examined it.

"Fascinating," Gaius muttered after they passed through.

"We'll return to the Labyrinth in the morning. Feel free to have a look around at the research." Mirian had already detailed the wards her father needed to avoid tripping with his illusionary disguise on their flight in. She levitated the box over to Specter's hideout, killed her, incinerated the body, and took over her little lair.

As Mirian laid out her supplies for the Labyrinth, her father frowned.

"That's… it? That's all you're bringing?" he said, poking at the things on the table. She frowned. She had high calorie foods, including myrvite jerky, plenty of water, rope, a telescoping metal pole, a nice sack for carrying anything they found back, and a few mana elixirs.

"Why? What else would you bring?"

"Ten times as many mana elixir. Far more soul repositories, all full. We can also create enchanted lures—short lived enchantments to draw out attacks. Your probe trap spell will trigger a carapace-crusher to attack, but not a voidling or a causter. You also don't have nearly as many enchanted items as I'd recommend. I'd add another sequence to your attack spell page to deal with the doors that slam shut. When one of those stone doors goes down, you need it open immediately. Force drill is too slow.

I use shatter rock, which puts out a lot more force a lot faster. What defensive spells are you using?" This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"I've just been conserving my mana and using the Dusk Waves dervish stance to react in time with a prismatic shield or whatever I need. Enchanted items take too long to make, and I already have the professors here churning out artifacts needed for research." Gaius gave her an appraising glance.

"The loop really does play with your mind, doesn't it? No one I've ever talked to looks at the Labyrinth with so little concern. You see death as an inconvenience now."

"That's what it is." She looked at the items laid out again.

"Is it really that obvious? I thought I was being careful. After all, arcane physics tells us there must be a limit to the number of loops, so I need to be efficient. And I don't want the other Prophets to get ahead."

"Most people planning to go to the fourth level are petrified. The planning documents alone would cover the table." Mirian thought back to Beatrice's team up in Frostlands Gate.

"I suppose so."

"We should spend at least another day in preparation. I can buy every mana elixir in Mahatan, then range out and buy the supplies we need to synthesize some new ones. Soul repositories are easy to make. Proper preparation will be efficient. You can maintain defensive and divination spells as you move. Consider just how many days a fatal encounter loses you."

"I suppose so," Mirian said. It took her a moment to realize just how desensitized to death she'd become, including her own. The natural fear that came from the voidling's suffocation attack might get to her in the moment, but contemplation of it meant nothing to her. She tried to remember the fear she'd felt when she'd first entered the Labyrinth with Lily's sister, Beatrice. The memory was too distant for the feeling to come.

Mirian returned to the Labyrinth with her father at her back, feeling strange. It was still the month of Solem. She still hadn't seen Spring. Lily Berton was still, technically, her roommate in the Academy dorms. She was still enrolled as a sixth year student. And yet, she was ordering around her professors. Archmage Luspire listened to what she said. And here was her long-lost father, an arch-necromancer of legend, escorting her down to a Labyrinth beneath Torrviol itself.

Each step on this path had made sense, and yet, trying to trace a line from her beginning to this moment left her disoriented. As they moved from the third level to the fourth level, she brought her focus to the present. The abomination corpses were, of course, gone. Mirian still didn't know if other creatures in the Labyrinth consumed them or they were just absorbed by the Labyrinth itself.

"That's the direction of the door-trap that probe trap worked on," Mirian said, pointing down the hall to the right. Gaius nodded.

"Let's give you a look at it then. From your description, it sounds like a carapace-crusher, which means its already in position, waiting. Put up a reinforced force shield. Further reinforce it with soul-energy coating. The carapace-crusher is highly resistant to spells. Then cast a lensing spell and look that way." Mirian did.

"It's a dead end."

"No. Look closer. That's not a part of the room's wall. It's carapace designed to look like it. You can see the dark eyes embedded. Of course, as soon as it realizes it's been spotted—" There was a bone-chilling howl, and the rectangular section that looked like a wall suddenly grew thick spikes the size of a torso. Dozens of eyes on the 'wall' opened up, and the horror charged forward. Mirian swore and stumbled back as the creature closed some thirty meters in about a second.

There was a crunching sound as its body slammed into their two force shields. It was like an entire wall had just rushed them. She lashed out with a disintegration beam.

"Layer force shields," her father said. Mirian cast without thinking, just as dozens of appendages burst from behind the wall of carapace. Each one looked like segmented legs, except with a crystalline spike at the end, and each was thicker than her leg. They lashed out all at once, drilling into her shield. The outer layer of her force shield shattered, and she found herself pumping mana into the second one to keep it steady. Gaius began slicing apart the appendages with force blades, so Mirian copied him.

"The carapace is mostly crystalline shell," he said. Ah, Mirian thought, and cast her newly scribed shatter rock. The carapace-crusher let out another bone-chilling howl as the rectangular shield of carapace burst open. Dark ichor dripped down, oozing from the taut muscle-like flesh.

"Now, any attack spell should finish it." She unleashed greater lightning, and electricity cascaded over the monster in a thunderous boom that echoed through the tunnels. The pseudo-flesh of the creature hissed and crackled as it collapsed to the floor. Gaius smiled.

"Good work."

"Why force shields instead of a prismatic shield or a black shield?"

"Now you know how little mana you can expend to block the attack. One of the things that gets archmages killed down here is putting too much mana into their spells. They over-commit to defense out of fear, then drain their aura before they've made it five rooms. Then something hits them as they retreat." Mirian nodded.

"A cleared room isn't necessarily clear." She walked up to the corpse of the carapace-crusher. It had been about three meters tall, and ten meters long. It had a dozen legs, each one full of the stringy muscle-like stuff that made up labyrinthine horrors.

"Terrifying," she said.

"Indeed," Gaius said.

"After the first one I encountered, I recall needing to go take a break on the surface for two full days before I could bring myself to head back down. It had pinned me up against a door that had closed behind me in an instant. I think I pissed myself." He sighed.

"I do miss eating, but I certainly don't miss excreting. Come on. Let's continue." They had to carve up a piece of the corpse and move it so they'd have space to pass through the door. The carapace-crusher had been hiding in the next doorway, leaving a new passage open. Cautiously, they moved ahead.

By the end of Solem, Mirian had a new appreciation for Gabriel and Liuan. They were delving into the Labyrinth without the kind of myr rating she had, and without an arch-necromancer to help. Presumably, that took more preparation and allies than she was initially giving them credit for. Liuan must be recruiting archmages. There's quite a few in Akana Praediar. How many are in Urubandar or Alatishad though? Maybe there's some dervishes. She sent them several letters on what she'd learned.

By the end of Duala, Mirian understood why it was taking them so long. The first few levels of the Labyrinth were full of easily killed horrors. Exploring the fourth level took a great deal more time. Throughout the loop, they had to take breaks of several days to harvest more myrvites for soul energy and brew more mana elixirs. Throughout the month Mirian brought up various samples of tri-bonded glyphs and runes for her professors to study.

Endresen and Viridian were making good progress on mapping out what Mirian was beginning to call the 'mana cycle.' With even basic spirit constructs, it was easier to map out different grades of mana and what they were doing. As Viridian had discovered, spell engines were causing a buildup of arcane energy in the leylines. The imbalance of forces was causing the Divir moon to fall, but it was the sheer amount of energy causing the arcane eruptions and leyline breaches.

Whatever their solutions to the crisis were, the energy would need to be released somehow. Is there a way to direct a controlled release? Mirian updated her notes, both on the larger-scale leyline regulator devices that would be needed to deal with a full leyline, and the smaller portable regulator she wanted to incorporate into an armor set so she could deal with smaller eruptions.

Gabriel reported back that he was continuing to map the new Labyrinth entrance he'd found, and that his solution to carapace-crushers was to use illusions to bait an attack, sending the beasts careening down a dead-end passage. Then, they had a hell of a time turning around. He refused to go below the fifth level.

"That's probably smart," Gaius admitted after glancing at the letter.

"Once you get there, there's obstacles and horrors that will attack your soul directly. The less you all explore the reset contingency on your temporal anchor, the better." Liuan was, as Mirian had surmised, recruiting various archmages and the Akanan equivalent of Praetorians to help map out of the Labyrinth. It was slow work. As for Scebur, she was still hunting them. Then, the world came to an end.

"See you soon," Mirian told her father.

"I'll always look forward to it, in every cycle, little Naluri," he said. They hugged, and the moon fell for the 230th time.