Chapter 221. Lineage (Patreon)

After the stint with Achemiss’ giant head, Maria and I continued through the tunnel. The passage has a slow downward gradient and the air has started to get hotter. We’ve seen a few odd things reflected in the dagger blade, but nothing as weird as Achemiss.

“Do you hear that?” Maria whispers.

I frown and halt my advance. “Sounds like something’s running. Like hooves or something.”

We proceed cautiously forward until we emerge in a large, dark cavern. Maria breathes sharply and grabs onto my arm.

Hundreds of glowing soul gems are suspended in air, the only source of light. With my vital vision, I see the bones that the soul gems animate. They’re wolf-like, misshapen skeletons, mismatched and scavenged from who knows where.

But they aren’t the kind of bones I can control–they’re inert, like dirt, devoid of Death energy. They aren’t controlled by an enemy practitioner, but rather by the confounding laws of this plane.

Suddenly the constructs swarm forward, their claws clicking maddeningly on the ground. I pull Maria into me and fly us both over the constructs. Several of the wolves leap into the air, some even clambering on top of their brethren to get a better launching point.

Maria launches a blast of flames at the constructs, knocking some back, but they seem unaffected by the heat, the fake energy of their synthetic soul gems insulating them.

The cavern begins to narrow, forming back into a tunnel. Eventually even that becomes little more than a crevice.

“Where did these come from?” I shout, flinging myself into the crevice. Maria passes the dagger into my hands as I pull her behind. She funnels flames behind her and kicks out, sending snapping wolf skulls tumbling to the far-off wall. “If we find what hole these things crawled out of, maybe we can use the dagger to banish them.

“Worry about going forward first,” Maria bellows.

I fumble with the dagger and try to see the reflection of the wall on the blade, but it’s too hard to see, even with Maria’s flames blasting behind. All I can see is fire.

I ram the blade into the wall and it plunges in without resistance. A moment later, searing lava rushes out of the wall like a geyser.

I wake up in a tunnel Maria and I had walked through a few minutes ago. Make that ten minutes.

There go my shoes, I sigh. I have the clothes from Suncloud, at least. Good thing you left your storage ring and Cayeun’s artifact with Karanos.

As I retrace my way through the tunnel, I find myself back in the chamber with the bone constructs...except it’s not like how I remember. Half the room is completely covered in a pool of oozing lava. The bone constructs are nowhere to be found.

As I fly forward, I realize that the tunnel Maria and I took to escape the constructs is completely submerged in magma.

Maria’s a Sun affinity fire elementalist–it’s not impossible that she found a way to escape. Hopefully she even grabbed the dagger.

Else I’ll be waiting for her to re-associate, her lich body relatively slow to reform.

Definitely starting to see why people skip this plane.

—

While initially interesting, this plane’s split reality tests our patience. I can only take so much of the walls turning to lava spouts.

We’ve tried escaping this place by piercing the veil, but the veil is thick, sturdy. I can’t even poke a small hole. The plane compass’ needle hangs limp.

Reaching the end of another labyrinthine stretch of tunnel, I give the veil another ineffectual probing. “Nope.”

Maria sighs. “Not much of a surprise at this point. Let’s see if there’s anything interesting in here.” The dagger has cut us free of every dead end so far. Summoning a fistful of fire for light, her hand twists the ornate dagger. After rotating it toward the walls, she angles it down to reflect in the ceiling. “There’s glass above.”

That’s new. “Ten minutes, then we’ll go up,” I say. It’s best to keep tight respawn points.

She nods; the two of us breathe slowly, quietly in the darkness.

“It’s time,” Maria announces. She leaps from the ground and rams the blade into the roof of the tunnel, turning the ceiling to clear glass. She falls among a rain of broken shards, landing in a crouch.

Through the hole in the glass shines cool, natural sunlight.

Dragging myself onto the other side, the glass ceiling–now floor–reveals not where we came from, but instead a large atrium filled with multiple levels of vertically-stacked pews. A grand altar heads the chamber.

When I peer back into the hole from which we came, I can still see the dark, dirty tunnel.

Glass windows surround us, giving us an unobstructed view of a rather flat city. None of the other buildings I see are as sleek or modern as the building we stand in now. The majority can’t be more than three stories tall. All have sloping, tapered roofs and the same boxy frame; the only point of difference is size, with some buildings taller or wider than their neighbors. They’re so similar that I could believe one person made them all.

“This is new,” Maria says. “Maybe we’re getting close to an exit.” As she strides to a window, she keeps her eyes on the dagger.

“What’s reflected in the blade?” I ask.

“Nothing of interest,” she replies. “Glowing mist. My vote is to break out of this building and keep moving forward.”

I rub the bridge of my nose. “Sure. Want a lift?”

Maria can move swiftly and fly with blasts of fire, but those skills are unsuited for slowly passing through a city, inspecting the surroundings for interesting details.

Her lip curls in reflexive distaste. “Sure.”

I step forward and smash the window, then levitate myself beyond the broken glass. A stray shard cuts my cheek, but I heal the wound with minimal effort. I use my practice to drag her body into the open sky. She’s far easier to manipulate than a living human. If I had to describe it, it’s like she’s more pliable.

I hold out my plane compass and think, Please work! Exhaling, I open the lid to reveal the compass needle pointing weakly in the northeastern direction. As I rotate the compass, the needle moves along with it, adjusting its bearing to the target.

“Finally,” I hiss. “We have a clear direction.”

But Maria is distracted, barely even reacting to the good news.

“What is this place? It doesn’t look like anywhere from our world.”

“Not sure,” I reply.

She sighs. “What we encountered in the tunnel all had some basis in your memories, correct? But this place is different. I think we should look around a bit–Karanos said that there’s a reward at the end of this trial. Maybe there’s something we’re supposed to find.”

“Can’t hurt to look around,” I suppose. “What makes you think that this place doesn’t belong?”

I bring us down to the ground and release my hold on Maria’s body.

“Look back at the spire where we emerged,” she says, pointing behind. A glassy obelisk rises into the sky, a monument surrounded by stout, unworthy hovels. “Remember what was beneath us, under the glass floor?”

“Looked like a church,” I reply.

“More like a cathedral,” she murmurs, inspecting the wall of a clay house. “And look at these buildings–all earth elementalist make, simple. I don’t sense any arrays in them, not even simple ones for drawing water. And look at the holes in the top of the buildings.”

“Chimneys,” I state. “They’re burning things for heat. Maybe it’s a refugee town and these are temporary dwellings.”

She gives me a questioning look. “Does the spire look temporary to you?”

After further investigation, we come to one conclusion: the town is painfully primitive aside from the single anachronistic glass tower.

Maria hums contemplatively. “We need to see more. Let’s fly toward the vulnerability–I don’t think there’s anything here for us.”

Beyond the clay-hewn town are fields of tall grass and mighty deciduous forests. After half an hour of flying, the terrain is interrupted by a range of steel-gray, snow-peaked mountains. Built atop one of the lower mountains is a small city.

“Still earth elementalist hewn,” Maria states. “The buildings are much nicer, though–tall and clean, with sharp lines and decorative ornaments.”

We land on the mountain and look around. I admittedly know very little about architecture and city planning, so I defer to Maria’s knowledge.

“There’s an aqueduct system, so still no arrays to draw water.” She shakes her head. “With a handful of End practitioners paired with elementalists, they could give everyone fresh water, heat, and air conditioning. They clearly have enough earth elementalists to go around.”

“So you’re saying that this place could be a lot nicer than it is,” I summarize.

“Yes.”

“I didn’t expect to find you here,” a familiar voice says.

Maria and I turn, caught by surprise. “Karanos,” I call out. But is it the real Karanos?

“I bet the two of you are wondering why you’ve been brought to his place,” he replies. “Care to take a guess?”

“This is somewhere from your past,” Maria says.

Karanos’ expression remains stoic.

“This is your home world,” I realize.

“At least as I remember it,” he mutters. “What do you think of it?” he says coldly. “You’ve both already made an assessment, one that anyone would agree with. This place could be far nicer than it is.”

Karanos has only spoken of his home world once before, when we were going to the planar crane. I vaguely recall him mentioning that his world was strictly hierarchical, stratified along power, with regulars left to languish at best, and killed for their impotence at worst.

Karanos spreads his arms wide. “Do you know why this city is empty?”

Maria and I look at one another. I honestly hadn’t questioned it.

“It was culled,” he says simply. “Too low a practitioner density. Weak lineages.” Silence hangs like a wet blanket, dampening the warmth of our reunion.

I let his words sink in. The entire city?

“How long have you been on this plane?” Maria suddenly asks, as though Karanos hasn’t just casually mentioned genocide.

“Perhaps half an hour,” he replies. “I followed soon after you. Why?”

She looks around. “Can’t you carve your way out? Dunai and I have been searching for a veil vulnerability to escape, but you don’t need one.”

He frowns. “That’s not exactly how it works.” He draws his hand and slices the sky with a finger. On the other side is only darkness. “Remember that we’re in an unstable region–not everywhere in the lost quadrant connects to other planes. There are discontinuities. It’s probably easiest just to follow Dunai’s compass. If I’m not mistaken, the exit shouldn’t be too far.”

I can’t let what Karanos said go. “How do you know this place was culled? Did you...”Kill them?

His eyes glint. “Curious about my past, are you?”

“Can you blame me? The longer I spend with you, the more I feel like I don’t understand.”

He averts his gaze to the city. “I grew up here,” he says softly. “Trivilla. An unimportant settlement in the Bro’kest Mountains. Now get out the compass and navigate or I’ll go off on my own.”

He’s angry, Maria notes. He keeps it bottled up inside.

Should I have just kept quiet? I ask. Is it so wrong to want to know more about him?

I don’t think it’s you, Ian, Maria replies. Remember how he spoke of his home world before? A backward place that scours regulars from the earth.

He was a practitioner, I retort. A powerful one. This kind of world would treat him well. And if he was powerful enough to ascend...I imagine he could have forced change. Forced protections for regulars, if he so wanted. Like you, he could have endeavored for paradise.

You make it sound so simple, Maria says. Suppose he did just as you say. You think the other practitioners would really let him do as he pleased, upsetting the status quo? Remember how everything ended for me, Ian?

With Ari, I reply, confused by the question.

No–in betrayal. I’d reckon Karanos faced his own betrayals in this world, just on the basis of his background. If he came from a place with weak blood, in a world where lineage is everything...he would not have been treated kindly.

Chasing the veil vulnerability eventually leads us to a sprawling metropolis. The bleach-white buildings are of earth elementalist make and filled with clean, glossy windows. The roofs are elegant, with some constructed of dark, stacked tile, and others of lacquered bamboo. Gilded street lamps line the boulevards and the streets are perfectly smooth.

But more importantly...the city is filled with people. Humans gush through the streets like a tide, spilling in and out of buildings. Notably, the only sound in the city is that of human movement–everyone is mute.

“They don’t have...faces,” I realize, flinching. No eyes, nose, or mouth...just a blank wash of skin, almost like everyone is wearing a mask.

“Because none of them matter,” Karanos mutters.

Maria’s eyes rove over the city. “This was a practitioner capital.”

He glances at her. “What of it?”

“Did you live here?”

“I did, for a time.”

She bites her lip. “What was the density of practitioners in this place?”

“Around 70%,” he replies. “It’s easy to increase your practitioner density if you kidnap teens with high affinities and bring them to one place. But I digress–the exit can’t be far.”

“You said that half an hour ago,” I mutter. Half an hour isn’t a long time, but we’re moving fast, eating up a vast distance.

He ignores me and sets off again. I sigh and fly after him, Maria trailing just a half second behind, her expression reluctant.

The mountainous terrain and fir forests give way to a blasted desert. The compass begins to shift when we make small changes in our heading, indicating that we’re closing in on the vulnerability.

A wash of ice suddenly fills the horizon, easily spanning for miles. I squint my eyes into the glare.

“What is that?” Maria asks.

“Ice in a desert,” I reply. “I have no idea.” The desert isn’t particularly hot, but it’s not cold enough for that much ice.

“It’s glass,” Karanos murmurs. “I’m surprised you didn’t realize, Maria.”

As we approach, it becomes clear that the glass isn’t a simple reflective layer on the sand. No–the glass is a graveyard. Crystallized within are preserved corpses, like insects captured in amber. Thousands of people in combat armor, eyes zealous and wide, muscles rippling. Earthen spears and and water whips lie suspended around their practitioners, frozen in time. The other affinities aren’t so obvious–how would light or darkness be trapped in glass, for instance? But it’s clear that this was once a grand practitioner battlefield.

Karanos touches down at the center on a mound of sand. If the glass is a hurricane, then Karanos is standing at the untouched eye of the storm.

“Come,” he commands. “The vulnerability is here. I can feel it.”

Karanos killed these people, Maria transmits.

Can you really know that for sure? He’s a fire elementalist, but so are many other practitioners.

This place is significant to him–why else would it be the exit? Besides, just look at him. He’s averting his eyes to the sand and sky. He wants to leave quickly without dawdling. It’s unlike him to be so affected. Something terrible happened here.

I give Maria an uncertain glance, then fly to Karanos’ side on the sandy mound. I take a few steps forward until the compass needle swivels backward.

“That’s the–”

Before I can finish speaking, Karanos carves a hole in the sky, revealing a new plane covered in pink-tinged snow. He walks into it without a backward glance.

“Y’jeni, he really hates this plane,” I observe.

Maria’s brows furrow. She walks on the glass, peering down at the people frozen in time. She holds out the dagger and angles it down. “What do you think would happen if I plunged this blade downward?”

“What does the reflection look like?” I ask, intrigued.

“All I see in the dagger is light reflected off the glass, like the alternate reality is concealing itself. But I’m curious what secrets this place holds. In the end, this is a trial for us, not Karanos. Only we received this peculiar knife.”

I give the portal a glance as it knits itself together. Time is dilated here, so it’s not like Karanos will miss us on the other side.

“Let’s do it,” I agree. “But first...ten minutes.”

I float over to Maria’s side when the time elapses. She’s bent over a group of practitioners standing in some kind of formation, her head cocked to the side in contemplation.

“It’s time,” I state, gently nudging her shoulder.

She nods and hands the dagger to me. “Your turn to do the honors.”

I snort. “I feel like every time I use the dagger, something terrible happens.”

“Oh, come on,” Maria teases. “Could it be worse than lava?”

I chuckle nervously. “Don’t tempt fate.” I hold the dagger up in one last attempt to see the reflection of the glass ground. But like Maria, all I see is a harsh glare.

I get down on my knees and breathe deeply. As I exhale, I plunge the dagger into the glass.

The floor melts beneath us. Rigid hands grasp for my legs. Shouting, I try to fly myself up, but the hands are like unbreakable anchors. Maria, too, struggles, hands grasping at her legs and feet. The sand begins to sink rapidly and the hands pull us down.

Throughout the area, revived practitioners howl and struggle, not in their right minds. Some are already injured and on the brink of death, bleeding out on the sand. I can sense their vitality flooding away.

But soon it becomes apparent that the sand isn’t just sinking, but falling, as though a great pit opened up into the center of the earth.

Maria explodes the hands on her legs with a torrent of fire, while I use my practice to dismember reaching limbs. At least these people actually have vitality–my practice isn’t useless.

But we aren’t the only powerful people on this battlefield.

A water elementalist blindsides me and Maria with a geyser of icy water. A Dark practitioner approaches from the side and begins to swing at us with blades of shadow, his body becoming incorporeal whenever I try to take control of his limbs.

Soon all hundreds of practitioners are focused on us, their faces eerily expressionless.

Their intentions become clearer with each passing second: drag us into the still-deepening pit.

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