75: Valaka Amara (Patreon)

Vir stood half in rubble, half upon ancient road.

A giant cavern loomed above him. Half of it looked manmade, sculpted. The other half was natural, as if the great room had suffered a cave in.

Where is this? Vir thought, searching the darkness.

The cavern was as pitch dark as the sewers he’d just left, but Prana Vision lit the place up. Unlike the sewers, there wasn't a trace of detritus anywhere. No putrid smell that made him want to gag. The air was old, yes, but clean.

Vir spun around to see rubble piled up all the way to a ceiling, blocking the passage.

He gingerly got to his feet, trying to piece together what had just happened. He’d undercharged Dance of the Shadow Demon—something he’d never attempted before. And, by how it ended up, something he’d never attempt again.

It shot me out to some random destination?

Unwilling to linger in this unknown place, Vir activated the Dance again, slipping into his shadow. From within the shadow realm, he sought to return to the sewer he’d just come from. Dance’s range wasn’t very far, and if the ability shot him out into this cavern, then it meant he’d be able to return as well.

At least, that’s what it should have meant. Yet no matter which exit he looked through, he found nothing. Forget returning to his sewer tunnel—there were no other tunnels anywhere nearby. Every exit just put him in a different spot in this same cavern he was in.

Ten seconds passed, and the ability booted Vir out of the realm of shadows, back to where he’d stood.

Panic welled within Vir. He had no idea where he was, he had no map, no breadcrumb trail to find his way back. And he was out of range of Dance.

The ability had shown him he wasn’t in a cavern at all, but in an extremely tall and wide passage.

A passage that led downward.

A shriek pierced the silent tunnel, freezing Vir in place.

He immediately sank into a shadow, but was thrown out ten seconds later.

Nothing.

His heart threatened to burst from his chest as he waited another full minute, but no trace of whatever animal had emitted that wail remained.

Amin’s words echoed in his head—only monsters and ancient things lurked in the depths. That it was their domain. A place of secrets that ought not to be revealed.

But his options were few. Either he could stay and starve, or he could walk down this tunnel that led deeper into the earth.

Vir took a deep breath, and then another, steeling himself for what was to come. He flared Prana Vision to its maximum, and set out.

At the very least, he had his rucksack full of provisions. He wouldn’t starve down here, or die from thirst, at least not for several days. That was an ample amount of time to find an exit… assuming he didn’t run into a monster he couldn’t handle. That was a big assumption.

Having grown used to the din of the sewage canals, Vir felt at unease in the perfect silence of this tunnel passage, his ears straining to hear any sound of a beast that could be lying in wait. He pushed Prana Vision to its absolute maximum to give him every edge he could muster.

“Wish you were here with me now, Neel. I could use a buddy,” he muttered softly. Though no living organisms were in the area, he found himself unable to raise his voice, lest he provoke whatever horrors lurked down here.

Vir focused on the environment to distract himself. Nature had undone what man had built an age and a half ago, but vestiges of artificial construction remained. It was a road of some sort. One unlike any he’d ever seen.

The ground was perfectly smooth, built of a black, rubbery material that was both forgiving yet firm to the touch. Grippy. Bordering the road on each side were ornate designs etched into the same material, nearly unrecognizable against the damage of erosion and time.

The passage walls had similar decorations, though most of those had crumbled away entirely, leaving only the barest traces of their former existence. Whoever built this place clearly had vast wealth and resources.

Vir’s footsteps clacked against the artificial ground as he walked deeper, his eyes and ears straining for any sign of life that might call this abyss home.

It was after half an hour that his surroundings changed. Not the terrain—the ruined road remained largely the same—but with the prana in the air, and in the ground. The brown of Earth Affinity shone brighter than ever, surrounding him, but there was something else, too. Traces of Ash prana.

His affinity existing here didn’t surprise him. He’d found it nearly everywhere, just in miniscule quantities.

But this tunnel was large. Easily thirty paces in height, and thirty across. Prana Vision’s resolution at that range was awful.

If Ash prana existed here in the densities he’d seen elsewhere, then he shouldn’t have been able to see it.

Which means…

Vir walked up to a tunnel wall and peered into its depths. He wasn’t imagining things. The Ash Prana density here was easily thrice its usual.

On a whim, he sucked prana into his legs to engage Leap… and nearly failed. The onrush of prana was so significant, it almost overloaded his body.

That didn’t even take a half second to fully charge! If Vir could access this amount of prana everywhere, his Balar Rank would be far, far higher.

From then on, Vir didn’t bother walking. He alternated between Leap and Dance of the Shadow Demon to cover ground far more rapidly than he was used to. Even the prana hungry Dance barely took a second and a half to charge up.

So this is what Talent wielders get to experience…

Soon after this discovery, he came to his first junction. A four-way intersection, with each tunnel as large as the one he’d come from.

And it was there he saw the first traces of something living. Not a monster… but its footprints. Webbed, three-pronged things that ended in claws, based on their indentation in the road. Having tracked animals in the Godshollow all his life, Vir picked up on them immediately.

And from their size—about three times the length of his own boot—he knew that this was not a small animal. The path led off into one of the intersecting tunnels, and so Vir crossed that off as a viable option.

That left two passages—he could either go straight, or turn left.

He was about to choose one at random when he sensed something. He only noticed it because of how alert he’d been…

The Ash prana was in the air, too.

This was a first. He’d only ever seen Ash prana occupy the air in Shardul and Ekanai’s memories.

What’s more, the Ash prana was distinctly stronger coming from the left tunnel. It was as if the prana beckoned to him, inviting him to follow it.

Vir had no reason to refuse. He entered the tunnel, letting Prana Vision guide him.

Before long, he came upon another junction, and again followed the trail of prana, which grew stronger and stronger as he progressed.

Vir tried to ignore the little voice in his head that told him this prana trail was taking him deeper underground. Away from the surface. Away from safety.

Just as he began to wonder whether this tunnel was a remnant from the Age of Gods, a silhouette popped up in the distance. A building, tall and rectangular, that lay on its side, broken.

Vir hesitantly approached and laid a hand on its smooth metallic surface.

Metal!? Vir thought in alarm. The entire building was flush, with not a single protrusion or door, and every inch was steel.

The sheer expense of such a feat boggled his mind. Metal was precious. Swords of high quality steel were expensive enough. To construct an entire building out of it? It sounded impossible.

This wasn’t the kind of luxury one ever saw in the Known World.

No…

He corrected himself as the truth dawned on him. Not something from the Age of Realms.

But in the Age of Gods? He imagined such feats were quite possible.

Somehow, by some trick of fate, he’d stumbled into ruins from the Age of Gods over four millennia ago. He might have been the first to do so in thousands of years.

Or perhaps those who came down here never lived to tell the tale…

Vir pressed on down the road. A marked transformation had occurred since he’d encountered the building. Both the road and the walls were far more intact in this section of the tunnel, compared to where he’d first started. Life and Water prana coursed through the intricately carved patterns that bordered the road. The dancing patterns of the prana looked like art to his eyes.

No! Not ‘like’ art! It is art!

Vir had seen a small handful of paintings, usually brought through Brij by traveling merchants, bound for greener pastures. Sometimes, they’d even tried to explain what made them tick.

It had all sounded like gibberish to Vir at the time, but after Prana Vision, he’d seen how colors could complement each other, and how certain images and painted scenes could please the eyes.

What he saw now made all of that look like a three-year-old’s charcoal scribblings.

The prana patterns intertwined and complemented the etched carvings, forming a tapestry of art that was neither prana nor physical, but both intermingled and woven together.

With each step he took, more and more of the glory of the Gods’ architecture revealed itself, until it felt like the entire tunnel became an art piece, bursting with a rainbow of prana affinities.

In the distance, Vir saw the end of the tunnel. Cautiously, he walked up to its entrance… and then, in a cavern so large that Prana Vision couldn’t discern its ceiling, he saw it.

A sight beyond anything in this realm. A place that should not have existed. That should have been lost to time.

A city of the gods.

Not ruined, or destroyed, but standing tall, proudly. As if awaiting the return of its former inhabitants.

Before he’d realized it, Vir had fallen to his knees, staring up at the myriad of tall spires that defied gravity. He’d never seen buildings that soared so high.

Carefully, katar in hand, he put one foot in front of another, and trode upon the hallowed road.

Like the tunnels until now, this space was pitch black.

At least, it was, until Vir stepped onto the road that led to it.

One by one, buildings flickered to life, roused from their slumber of centuries. They emanated an artificial blue-white glow that mesmerized Vir. The road to the city burst with light, illuminating a path.

As if he was being welcomed. As if he was expected.

As each building flared to life, prana erupted from them. Ash prana. Vir had never experienced such an incredible density of Ash prana in his entire life. There was so much of it he didn’t even have to worry about preventing prana leakage. In fact, the prana was so oppressive that it pushed itself into his body, making for a slightly uncomfortable sensation.

Before long, the entire cavern glowed with light thrown off by the ancient city, allowing him to see that the group of structures weren’t merely in the cavern, they were situated on a sort of island within the cavern.

A cavern that had no floor. The road he thought he was on was actually a bridge, which spanned across an abyss so deep, Vir felt it stretched to the very core of the earth.

As for the island the city sat upon, well, it floated midair.

“Like a Vimana,” Vir whispered.

The bridge, like the rest of the city, was well lit, with blue-white ground lighting running along the sides of the path, illuminated the way.

As he neared the sacred city, the buildings’ details became visible. Almost nothing was untouched by prana. Every affinity—Shadow, and Earth included—ran up and down these buildings, forming intricate, ever-shifting patterns that were beautiful in a way Vir couldn’t find words to describe. And, wrapping and dominating over all the other affinities was Ash prana, as if given a place of special importance.

The way its builders incorporated prana into their architecture reminded Vir of a seric sword. There was power here. Genuine power. As if that was its primary purpose, but because its builders were such masters, it somehow ended up looking beautiful and elegant anyway.

Vir’s reverie ended the moment he crossed the bridge.

A wall stood in his way. Translucent, yet tinted black. Prana Vision recognized it immediately. It was Ash prana, and it enveloped the city in a bubble.

A barrier of some sort? Vir thought. Perhaps a shield?

Vir reached a hand out, thinking it would stop him.

Instead, his arm passed right through, and the shield disappeared, and a series of lights lit up on the ground, as if to guide him.

Is there someone here!? Vir thought. His wonder slowly devolved into panic. Every story from the Age of Gods spoke of beings that wielded absurd powers, who could level entire cities on a whim.

And not only was he walking into a city of theirs, it even seemed like someone was home.

Vir closed his eyes and calmed his breathing. The gods were gone. Dead, according to the Altani, or ascended, if you believed the Kin’jals.

There would be no one here to greet him. His biggest threat was monsters.

“Welcome, Ekavir,” a disembodied voice said, a moment before a great man shrouded in blue-white light appeared in front of Vir, forcing him to Leap back.

No, not just light. Blue and white prana! The man was made entirely of prana.

“W-who are you!?” Vir cried out.

“You know me as Janak. This is the Prime Imperium outpost Valaka Amara, and you have just doomed yourself to death.”

NOTE: Yeesh, I swear I didn't plan to end the week on a cliff! See you all on Monday! Hope you have a great weekend!