“Wait,” Chloe says, just as the light of the entrance begins shining through the final-slash-first corridor of the labyrinth.
“Are you concerned about an ambush?” Nicholas asks. “I neither hear nor sense anything. Ms. Mortensen, do you detect anything with your Skills?”
“It’s not an ambush I’m worried about. It’s just… What if this wasn’t completely a trap?”
“Please explain, Ms. Jacobs?”
“That part of the inscription about darkness eclipsing the light. We thought it had referred to the end of the tunnel. We’d have to occlude some light source to make a path where there was none before. What if we have to do so right here, at the entrance?”
“Hmm… An interesting conjecture, and one that shouldn’t be too difficult to test. Ms Mortensen, if you wouldn’t mind.”
“Let the record reflect that I’m doing this because of you, Chloe love.”
“Remember, Sera. He’s deliberately trying to antagonize both of us. If we give in to his provocations and try something against him, he wins, and he knows it.”
“Let the record also reflect that he’s a manipulative asshole of the highest caliber.”
“The choir responds to the preacher.”
I walk up to the entrance and cast a simple [Darkness] spell. Nothing too powerful, just enough to cover the entranceway in a thin cloak of darkness that looks like a black fog bank and obscures about half the light coming in. It doesn’t seem to do anything in particular, but I’m not willing to just blow the whole experiment off just yet.
So I continue on, pushing through the light, and once I get to about eighty percent occlusion, there’s a shift. A set of golden stairs appears in the entryway, glittering and lustrous. They lead upward toward the ceiling, toward an opening in the wall which definitely wasn’t there before.
“Interesting…” Nicholas mutters. “Very interesting. When darkness occludes the light, the path will be revealed. I suppose that would make sense. Seraphina, your glasses. Can you inspect the stones?”
I nod, pulling the [Artificer’s Glasses] out and activating them. Sure enough, there are two supernatural and magical substances involved, one for the stairs, and the other for the now-hole in the ceiling.
[[Ghoststone]: A lustrous golden stone crafted by a skilled [Oresmith]. When exposed to light in sufficient quantities, it becomes invisible and intangible.]
[[Darkstone]: A matte black stone crafted by a skilled [Oresmith]. This strange material absorbs light, making itself visible and tangible in such conditions. When in darkness, it becomes invisible and intangible.]
Not wanting to risk losing the opportunity to study either of these materials, I break off a couple of clumps of both, storing them away in my [Inventory]. Nicholas, seeing my reaction, does the same, though he first slips on a pair of latex safety gloves before handling them. I doubt they’ll break down just from brief exposure to skin oils, but I respect the scientific precautions.
With our samples taken, we head up to the hidden chamber. The [Darkness] spell abates, sealing the entrance we’ve made behind us. I could probably break the Darkstone with sufficient applications of physical force, but I decide against it. The only way we’re getting out of this subspace is by completing the task at hand and then defeating the boss at the end of it, so we might as well not waste our time with the temptation to backtrack.
“Now then,” Nicholas says. “That inscription said something about a hidden sanctum, and I’m sensing treasure. Ms. Mortensen, Ms. Jacobs, let’s check all these walls for any anomalies.”
“Like that?” Chloe says, pointing straight ahead. “The way my light is striking that wall, and the shadows that are forming. They aren’t quite right.”
“Hmm… Yes, I can see it as well. It may be more of these strange ores from before. Ms. Jacobs, please disable the light briefly. Ms. Mortensen, did a passageway open up?”
“Hmm… Yes, it did. Though there’s more Ghoststone just beyond it.”
“So, a light puzzle. This will be tedious, to say the least, climbing up this… Eclipse Tower, as I shall call it. And I believe it is more evidence to support your earlier statement.”
“Which statement?” Chloe asks.
“Ms. Mortensen had stated that she believed the Tower changes its layout to accommodate the various parties which enter it. I had initially dismissed her conjecture when she’d mentioned how we were exposed to the same seventh floor. However, the challenges here in this final stretch of the Tower are too particular
to the Skill sets the three of us have. Me with my analysis and deductive-reasoning enhancement abilities, Ms. Jacobs, with the ability to manipulate light almost effortlessly. And finally, Ms. Mortensen, with eyes that see through and around obstacles in all directions at once, simultaneously.“Do you, for even a moment, believe that Lieutenants Wilson and Morris, Sergeant Ivankov, even working with Specialist Reed, would be able to overcome this particular challenge?”
“Hard to say. They might, but–”
“Specialist Reed— Warrant Officer Reed, should she formally return to my command— has the eyes, the tracking ability and the [Identify] Skill. She does not, however, have the decades of experience in signals intelligence and information processing capabilities necessary to have noticed such an anomaly. Nor does Sergeant Ivankov. They may have— and I emphasize the word may— found another way in. But I do not believe this particular set of challenges would have best tested their own individual strengths.
“In short, I am inclined to believe, in light of this new evidence, that what Ms. Mortensen said back then is correct, and that I will have to adjust training regimens accordingly.”
My lips momentarily curl upward at the brief mention of his displeasure, especially because, for once, I’m not the cause of it.
With nothing to do in the immediate, we head through the now-open door. It’s slow and tedious, particularly because some additional properties of this Darkstone and Ghoststone include sensory-blocking capabilities. Namely, while tangible, I can’t see through them in the slightest. I can see around them, a very, very tiny bit, but not enough to chart a coherent path through the tunnels. Which means, once again, we’re stuck with the onerous task of flickering the light on and off, algorithmically and systematically checking every passageway for any signs of a way forward. Or loot, which Nicholas in particular is adamant we find more of at all costs.
The one saving grace in all of this is that neither the Ghoststone nor the Darkstone will re-form through a person’s body when light is removed or suffused through it, respectively. So at least we don’t have to worry about one of us getting accidentally crushed from within should Chloe turn the light off abruptly, or one of our bodies eclipses too much of it in a particular slot.
Still, it’s boring. I find myself fiddling around with my phone outside of my [Inventory], for no reason other than to track the tedious, monotonous, soul-sucking tiptoeing of time as we travel through these damp, dank, dark, and damned corridors. All of which lead nowhere but to more pathways. For a moment, I even start to wonder if this is another one of the Tower’s numerous traps, this one meant to deceive us by appearing to have some greater purpose where none exists. But I dismiss the concern— this entire floor is hidden quite well. A little too well for it to be just a fake.
“I think I’ve found something, Ms. Mortensen,” Nicholas says. “Just ahead. Do you see it?”
He’s pointing toward a part of the wall that looks the exact same as all the other parts of the wall that aren’t made either of Darkstone or Ghoststone. But I also don’t want to come off as a total ignoramus, either. Nicholas is teaching me, tutoring my analytical reasoning skills in his own way.
I know his motives are self-interested. He sees me as a potential ally in the coming conflict. Or at least, he’s trying to sway me to his cause. Or, if I end up being an enemy, he wants to teach me to think in ways like he does. Ways that he can predict and exploit.
I don’t like it, just as I’m sure he doesn’t like working with us. I guess that, like politics, the apocalypse makes for strange bedfellows.
So, then… What is the issue? I spend a few seconds looking at the spot on the wall. Chloe turns off the light, then turns it back on, flickering it a couple of times at my request. Nothing. What’s different? I wrack my brain with the possibilities.
“Do you need a clue?” Nicholas asks.
I don’t answer for a couple more seconds, making absolutely certain that I’ve considered every possibility. Finally, something comes to me. “This is the only place we’ve seen to this point where the path branches in two directions, while there’s also a dead-end in front of us. Every other branching pathway has been either three other paths to choose from, or has let you choose between going ahead and turning.”
“Correct. And if there is a hidden sanctum, it is likely to be right behind this spot.”
“But how do we get to it?”
“My conjecture is that neither light nor darkness will be enough. If this entrance is sealed by some hybrid of Ghoststone and Darkstone, it may require special lightning conditions to bypass.”
“Or different wavelengths of light. Or perhaps this is some third material.”
I pull out my [Artificer’s Glasses] once more to examine the entryway. It’s indeed an alloy of the two materials, and no, the inspection yields no pertinent information on how we can bypass it.
“Sera, can you channel your [Darkness] into a sphere? Like when you cast your [Black Hole], but on a much smaller scale. The same scale as this orb of light, specifically.”
“Sure.”
And it’s plenty easy, too. Just [Darkness] and [Compression] combined together in my mind, the natural forces of the world causing it to take the shape of a sphere on their own. It takes a bit to modulate the power down to just a trickle— enough to keep the spell powered, not too much to start damaging the structure all around us.
“Now, stand in front of me, holding your darkness in front of my light with respect to the position of the wall.”
“Of course,” Nicholas says. “I had designated this as Eclipse Tower on a whim, but it seems that that designation had proven more accurate than I’d initially realized.”
And sure enough, not long after we form the eclipse pattern on the wall, something akin to the sun’s corona during a total solar eclipse, some sort of strange mechanism activates. A purely mundane one, built into the alloy that has thus far proven impervious to my attempts to peer into it to even the slightest degree. Because it is wholly mechanical, with no Ether empowering it beyond the natural amounts floating through this tower within the Tower, I hadn’t sensed it before. But now, now that I know what I’m looking for and have saved a mental snapshot of the flow signature, it shouldn’t be too difficult to keep watch for any others that might be lurking.
“Well, well, if it isn’t a hidden chamber, just as the inscription said,” Nicholas says. “And I can already tell that there’s going to be some rather interesting goodies waiting for us at the end.”
We take our first few steps into the chamber that would be far too large for the Eclipse Tower, if not for all the spatial shenaniganry afoot. The door closes behind Chloe, the last of us to enter the large, high-ceilinged room.
And as soon as it does, a primal roar bellows out, one belonging to a creature that seems alien… Alien in the eldritch horror sense, not the ‘I’m a reincarnated cyborg alien by virtue of being from another planet’.
And it’s about to attack. Doesn’t seem like there’ll be a chance to talk this one out, either.