Wakespire: Chapters 22-23 (Patreon)

You'll hear more about the art later, but for now, we are back to focusing on chapters. Wakespire is the longest book in the series so far, so you have quite a bit of content to look forward to. ^-^

When writing these chapters, I didn't realize this week would be such a cliffhanger. Didn't intend it, honestly. You can probably guess where things are going, but I think this form will keep the book moving forward.

-

Chapter 22

"Alright, fine." Theo tried to look back at Senka, which was unusually tricky with the room constantly twisting around him. "If you know this place, how does it work?"

"That's a bit of a problem. I knew about it, I wasn't a veteran." Senka hovered beside him, grinding her teeth, and briefly looked much older than her impish form. "It's some kind of gauntlet of illusions, spatial distortion, and allegedly misery. I'm immune to some things even now, but it's not helping at all here."

"So what made you think I could get through? Watch us starve to death in the first room."

"Oh, I could survive for at least several rooms on your body. But give yourself more credit than that. I didn't ask you to come here just because you were the only person who trusts me."

"The first problem is just getting to any door." Theo remained very still and pointed toward the door to his right. "What happens if you float over to that one?"

"You see a door over there? Huh."

It quickly became obvious that they were seeing different rooms. For a while they tested different positions, just in case the room you saw was dependent on where you stood. Unless the room was controlled by some sort of unfathomably complex patterns, Theo thought that it was random.

"Okay, we take a step back." Theo closed his eyes and focused purely on his other senses. "They wouldn't have put a lock on the door if they wanted to lock this place away forever. This must be a gauntlet that people made to travel through if absolutely necessary. And if they're people... unless there were people with radically different minds back then."

"I'm not sure how long ago my era was," Senka said, "but people were mostly people. Outsiders like the House of the Lost are about as inhuman as I've seen reality get."

"Then shut up and let me concentrate."

He didn't need to tell her to shut up, but Senka just grinned. With his eyes closed again, he could feel the room around him without it shifting rapidly. Even when he turned, he didn't feel any changes.

Of course his gravitational sense was the most likely solution. The problem was that it told him that there was nothing but absurdly high densities beyond the current room. It was slightly relieving to feel the entrance behind him, so they hadn't been thrown incomprehensibly far into some hellish dimension. But no matter how he moved, none of his senses revealed anything particularly unusual in any other direction.

Actually, that wasn't really true: he hadn't tried to touch anything. Theo kept his eyes closed and walked to one of the walls. For a moment he was happy to feel rough wood, like he'd found a door... but it refused to budge. When he ran his hands over it, the surface changed back to stone. So the chamber was capable of altering all of his senses.

That cemented his theory: this was all illusion, not some more complex challenge. His gravitational senses might not be very useful, but they weren't affected. He used them to guide himself around the chamber, testing every single surface of what proved to be a hexagon. Some felt like various kinds of doors, but it was when he was running his fingers over some stone that he realized that his hand passed through.

"Here." Theo looked, and though his eyes and skin told him he was running up against a solid wall, gravitationally he knew his arm was passing through when he extended it. "This looks like the only door onward."

"It looks like nothing to me," Senka said. "You'd better not be convincing me to run head-first into a wall."

"No, it's really the way out. This isn't so bad. Just like an ancient version of the Wakespire. If we can figure out the tricks, we-"

When they stepped through the door, terror seized hold of Theo's mind. Mindless fear that consumed him, urging him to flee at all costs. He automatically gathered cantae to fight back, even though his mind was telling him that it was useless and that he would die at any moment.

Yet there was nothing. Just another room, with empty shelves along the walls. Waves of terror continued pumping through him with no apparent cause, and they weren't letting up.

"Is t-this..." He hated how his voice trembled, but the adrenaline was overwhelming. "Is it a f-fear room?"

"It's not." Senka wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. "Not a trap. Just raw misery. From... from the river."

Considering it that way, Theo realized that she was right. The intense fear wasn't urging him to flee back to the previous room or curl up in a ball or anything that would prevent his progress. If anything, his body was screaming at him to run wildly in any direction, anything other than staying still and dying.

"It doesn't... get better." Theo clenched his teeth and took a shaky step forward. "We can't resist it, so we just move on."

Through the next door, he suddenly found himself tumbling through the sky. He was plummeting, no matter how much he tried to fly. Theo automatically cast a gravitational field, then an anchoring point that should have locked him in place, yet they did no good. He was still hurtling into endless darkness...

Or was he? Free of the illogical terror, Theo focused solely on himself. He was anchored in place, his technique working perfectly. This room wasn't overcoming any of his techniques, it was just another illusion. When he focused solely on his gravitational senses, they told him that he was spinning wildly, but they also gave hints of a door onward.

"They're just challenges," Theo said with a smile. "We've got this."

~ ~ ~

"We don't have this."

Theo sat in front of a series of doors, each made from identical wood. They weren't illusions but actual paths onward. Some were dead ends, some led to more doors, but so far each door had contained nothing but pain. Sometimes he'd be flooded by a sense of humiliation, other times depression, often a self-consuming rage.

At times he thought he heard the flowing of a river, as if he was getting closer, but there hadn't been any pattern he could determine. It seemed like all the miserable emotions were flowing out into the empty rooms. Like this place was a vast emotional dam holding back all the sensations from spilling over. It wasn't a path designed to keep people out, the Archive was designed to keep the river in.

The problem was, the rooms formed a maze and he hadn't figured out any way through except brute force. Experiencing so many different sensations had taken an enormous psychic toll on him, which was why he was taking a break. Senka had done her part testing some of the doors and now lay spread out on the floor beside him.

"You okay, Senka?"

"Urgle."

"Did you revert to your cursed state, or...?"

"I have nothing to say but 'urgle'."

He chuckled, which improved his mood more than he expected. Interacting with Senka, whether it was being amused or annoyed, felt authentic in a way that none of the intense emotions did. Theo smiled and examined the remaining doors. Just a few more minutes of rest, then they'd move on.

~ ~ ~

The sprawling labyrinth of misery finally led him to a different sort of dead end. Theo nearly turned back and closed the door before he realized that the shelves actually contained objects. Sublime materials, remnants of books, an entire skeleton.. the room seemed to have been looted at some point in the past, but what remained might have some value.

"What's this?" he asked Senka, just to hear her voice.

"Guess this place archives more than misery." She walked forward to examine the room. "I don't sense anything strange, so it might be a real storeroom."

"I'm too tired to figure out if any of this is useful. Let's loot everything and keep going."

~ ~ ~

Door after door, room after room. Theo had taken multiple breaks to sleep or eat. He soulcrafted only occasionally to clear his head, and he felt the absence of his usual routine. Assuming that his urge to sleep followed normal circadian rhythms, he'd been traveling through the Archive of Misery for multiple days.

As far as he could tell, they were making progress. Entire branches had been ruled out as completely empty, or at least empty after he took what remained. The problem was that the maze really did seem to shift. It wasn't an illusion like the first room, hallways and doors truly moved in his absence. Senka's theory was that the river itself had a chaotic nature and the Archive that contained it had to shift to compensate.

Thankfully the next room only had a single door. No more branches for his weary mind to map. Since there was no strong emotion in the room and the Archive hadn't really contained traps, he simply shuffled forward and opened the next door.

Too late, he realized that he was falling through a gate between worlds.

On the other side he fell onto carpet. It was soft, yet his hip hurt. Theo was too weary to get up, so he cast a gravitational field... and nothing happened. No cantae, no soulhome, no power.

He struggled to his feet and realized with horror that he was lying in his old office. Back on Earth. Where he'd been a middle manager, dreaming of another world. Theo raised his hands and saw that they were gnarled and covered in liver spots.

"No... Senka..." But Senka was gone and he was alone on Earth.

-

Chapter 23

For the first time in her life, Fiyu thought that there was perhaps too much soulcrafting. She wanted to explore the city of Ugustial with her companions. She wanted to leave the city and watch the strange sublime beasts in the mountains. She wanted to spend time with Friend Nauda...

But there was no choice. Fiyu desperately needed to work hard if she wanted to reach Authority in order to continue assisting Friend Theo and help others. Even with her relative providing her so many advantages, it was a massive work of soulcrafting. So many details to consider... she understood why Friend Theo had required so much time, then she'd also seen the results of his work.

Unfortunately, she was closer but not close. Fiyu sighed as she completed another circuit of her soulhome and acknowledged that it was not possible to ascend in the short term. There were two paths in front of her: complete her rooms as quickly as possible to ascend, or attempt more elaborate soulcrafting and become a proper Authority too late for the next competition.

"I require more time." Fiyu emerged into the physical world and bowed to her relative. "I am sorry I could not do more."

"This was the correct decision," Relative Guchiro said.

"Ah? Then... this was a test?" Fiyu smiled as the relief flooded through her.

"A test of your character more than your soulcrafting. You have been surrounded by Authorities, including one of your own companions, and it could be tempting to rush." Her relative rose to his feet and folded his arms within his cloak. "Normally, I would leave to acquire another material necessary for your ascension, but your companion still has our only Noveni weirkey."

"I will continue polishing the work I have done."

"We can do more than that. I have been speaking to local authorities about materials below and may be able to find one. I will trust you to determine the best sublime material to complete your incorporeality room."

"Yes, I will! Thank you!" Fiyu smiled happily as her relative flew from the balcony.

It would likely be several days until Relative Guchiro returned. While it would be responsible of her to continue refinement in his absence, she hoped to impress him. He had specifically asked her to find a material for her incorporeality room. That one had been a challenge, since it needed to build upon her Corporeal Floor while still matching the ways that she had changed as a person.

The slippery shadow that her relative had prepared for her was no longer appropriate, so she required something new. Finding something appropriate in such a bright world seemed improbable, but she would do the best she could. She had already incorporated the cloudshadow won from the previous round and hoped the chamber needed only a little more potency.

Fiyu was still polishing and thinking about the issue the next day when there was a knock on the door. She immediately tensed and analyzed the corridor outside, surprised that she had not anticipated the arrival. It appeared to be Acquaintance Isorales, who was more subtle than she had expected. Judging from the tension in his body and especially his wings, however, he was very nervous to be there.

"Can I help you?" Fiyu asked as she opened the door. Acquaintance Isorales jumped in surprise, as if he was not familiar with the function of doors.

"I, uh, wanted to talk to Nauda."

"She is not here. What do you need?"

"Well, I guess I can say, because it's about all three of you. I just..." He trailed off and began picking at one of his wings. Fiyu had never been certain if his oddly-shaped wing was truly damaged, and now that she was more familiar with Noveni anatomy, she still wasn't sure. The hollow bones of the wing did not appear fragmented, yet the muscles were oddly slack. "Basically, I was hoping you could help me. It might be a little dangerous."

"Many things are," Fiyu said. "What is it?"

"I'm hoping to ascend soon. Was supposed to a few days ago, actually. But one of my teammates was injured in an accident, and I'm suspicious it was really an accident, if you understand."

"Deception and treachery."

"More or less." Acquaintance Isorales twitched his wings and pulled together his composure. "I don't have any teammates to lose now, and I'm afraid the ascension will attract another 'accident'. I wanted to have you three on hand to provide support. With enough of us, I don't think the Dortorus lineage will try an attack."

"I will speak to Nauda and I think she is likely to agree. She is favorably inclined toward you." Fiyu paused in the doorway and considered her recent soulcrafting. "Our help is not contingent on this, but I wonder if I could request my favor now. You said that you would offer a sublime material."

"Oh! Right, sure, if you know what you want, I'll do my best."

Even though she had made the decision, Fiyu hesitated to share more details. She did not think that Acquaintance Isorales meant ill, but it was difficult to trust him when she knew so little about him. But there was no way to avoid giving him personal information about her soulhome, because any omissions would only make it difficult for him to assist her.

"One of my chambers is meant to make my body incorporeal," Fiyu explained. "I need a more powerful material."

"That's a tall order. I don't know if one material can cha-"

"I have completed a Corporeal Floor that prepares my body for this. But that is why it is essential for the material to match my soulhome. Your materials are... very bright."

"Sure, I can get something." Acquaintance Isorales folded his arms and considered for a while. "If you're okay with a crafted material, then I think I might be able to come up with an appropriate one. So it needs to be darkness oriented?"

"That would be acceptable, but the aspect of this chamber is actually ice."

"Huh. I'll look into it. But you'll talk to Nauda, right? Would you be able to help in a few days?"

"Some of my companions are not present, but we should be able to assist you." Fiyu nodded politely to him and then shut the door. Judging from his awkward shuffling on the other side, he had expected the conversation to go on for much longer. It made Fiyu feel rude, but she was concerned about how long such a conversation might persist.

On her own, Fiyu considered her remaining options and how likely it was that Acquaintance Isorales would be able to help her. She was unable to make progress before Friend Nauda returned, then they discussed the issue. As expected, Friend Nauda wanted to assist.

They both hoped that Friend Theo or Relative Guchiro would return in time to assist them, because having more Authorities would render an attack extremely unlikely. Neither did. So eventually, on the date that Acquaintance Isorales requested, they both traveled in the sleigh out to a location some distance from the city.

Ugustial grew smaller behind them but didn't disappear before they landed on a squat mountain not far above the cloud layer. Acquaintance Isorales was waiting there with the three Rulers remaining from the Jadadictus team. They did not appear particularly friendly to Fiyu's eyes, but they relaxed after her arrival. Perhaps they truly were worried about an attack and welcomed backup.

"Glad you could make it!" Acquaintance Isorales swept forward and hugged Friend Nauda for no discernible reason. "Hopefully this will all be for nothing. Since I missed the conjunction, we went to great lengths to find a suitable replacement far outside the city, where it's unlikely anyone could find us. There's a good chance that I'll just ascend and nothing interesting will happen. Of course, there's also a good chance I'll just fail..."

"Hey, don't talk like that." Friend Nauda pulled his body away from hers but her muscles did not appear tense. "Face the ascension confidently or don't face it at all."

"Y-you're right, of course. Now, umm, Fiyu..." Acquaintance Isorales appeared to fumble in his robes before he revealed a long box containing several hard objects with dense outer layers but gaseous interiors. "I did my best to fill your request. These are the best that the Jadadictus lineage can offer... or at least the best I could get my hands on."

Opening the box revealed little new, but Fiyu dutifully looked at the objects nestled in their places within. Each sphere was formed from a slightly different type of crystal and contained a different sort of gas. They also appeared to be different colors, with the spheres mostly clear and the gasses varying from red to gold to black.

"I can't give you all these, of course! Each one takes a Ruler artisan at least a month to create. This first one is elderglass filled with phantomdust..." Acquaintance Isorales continued to explain each of the spheres and it seemed that he actually had useful information.

"I would like this one." Fiyu picked up a sphere containing dark blue gas called ephemeralia, because both the description of its fleeting presence and its cantae felt appropriate. "Thank you for assembling them."

"No, no, these are still my thanks to you. I hope by this point we can all trust each other, but I understand we're still in competition."

"If that's done," Friend Nauda said, "can we move on to the ascension? Your friends are looking restless."

The other Noveni were indeed monitoring the city nervously, just as Fiyu had been monitoring. She could have told them that no one was approaching them from the city. More of their attention should have been focused on the mountain itself, because the numerous crags lost in the clouds were the only place where someone could hide from her senses.

"Not here," one of the Rulers said. He was a gruff man with six enormously muscular wings. "Let's move down to the next point, Prince Jadadictus. Further away from the city."

"Are you sure?" Acquaintance Isorales blinked at the man in surprise. "I thought this was our final location... or was that another trick?"

"Just in case, Prince."

All six of them flew to another mountain much further away, mostly just above the clouds to avoid attention. Normally, Fiyu would have said it was highly improbable that anyone would dare to attack six Rulers. During an event like the Wakespire, perhaps they were a more likely target. In any case, they were led to a larger mountain that was still more rounded than average. Instead of alighting on the top, where there was a dense little forest, they landed on one of the ridges near the clouds.

"Alright, then I guess we're here." Acquaintance Isorales tried to keep his face still, but his left leg was trembling underneath his loose pants. "Nothing to do but ascend."

Their group formed a circle around him as he knelt down and entered his soulhome. Friend Nauda offered a finger to examine him, which Fiyu accepted, but she was more concerned about examining the environment. Both the crags and the forest were complex enough that she couldn't be immediately certain that no one was present.

Would it be wise to ask them all to stop until the area could be thoroughly searched? Then again, if enemies were present, would it be wise to uncover them? Fiyu was still uncertain when Noveni society thought attacking was appropriate and when they would merely spy. She did not come up with any answer before Acquaintance Isorales began attempting his ascension, so it was too late.

The exterior of his soulhome appeared the same and Fiyu's senses couldn't penetrate within. He'd built a larger shielding wall and a more stable structure on his roof, so she hoped he was prepared. The pressure fell from the sky and began filling his soulhome.

Acquaintance Isorales winced and grimaced at the pressure, but his soulhome did not break as the new cantae cascaded through it. His cantae flow appeared to be almost as well-designed as Friend Theo's, though it would be tested due to his much slower path up the pyramid. Some of the Noveni called out encouragement and Friend Nauda began to smile.

And then something exploded atop the mountain.

Fiyu had a single moment to sense someone moving rapidly at that point, presumably the source of the explosion. After that, her senses were overwhelmed trying to track the rocks breaking apart overhead. The tumbling stones soon struck others and formed an avalanche.

Ordinarily it would be best to avoid it, but Acquaintance Isorales was still in the middle of his ascension. The Noveni braced themselves and some built shields of golden cantae. Friend Nauda had braced herself, but would it be enough?

A rock skipped above the others, tumbling over the shields. Fiyu moved automatically, using darkness to alter its path so that it didn't strike Acquaintance Isorales's head. Even as she did so, she felt a second explosion, even deeper in the mountain. Rocks rose like waves and tore down toward them, forcing back the shielding Noveni.

Fiyu did not want to disrupt the ascension, but there was no choice. She grabbed Acquaintance Isorales and pulled him away just before the avalanche swept over them. They flew through the air, small rocks flying above the storm occasionally pinging off their bodies.

By the time she landed, the avalanche had abated. Their group had fallen to a lower slope just above the clouds and only one of the Noveni had been injured by the rocks. At least... assuming that Acquaintance Isorales was well. He appeared to have become an Authority and there was no sign of major damage to his soulhome, but he hung limp from her arm and crumpled when she tried to set him down.

"Are they still there?" Friend Nauda asked from Fiyu's side. "I assume that was an attack."

"I can sense several figures further up the mountain," Fiyu answered. The enemy wasn't moving, but perhaps they didn't need to.

Their group contained no Authorities, so they had no easy ways of flying away. The avalanche had knocked the Noveni craft off the side of the mountain into the clouds and partially buried the sleigh. Fiyu could feel that its structure was largely undamaged under the rock and felt some relief, but there was no easy way to retrieve it from the rocks without exposing themselves to attacks.

For the moment, they were pinned at the lowest point on the mountain. Unknown enemies waited nearby and it was unknown if anyone had seen the avalanche so far from the city. Fiyu desperately hoped that Relative Guchiro or Friend Theo would return soon.