Chapter 213 - Hidden Knowledge

Cold, grey light shone down into a long, ancient ash-covered hall.

The curved stone walls and multi-level floor hinted at the elegance and refinement of what used to be an extravagant royal library. The top floor formed a half-circle platform, with staircases leading down to the level below on each side. Each level below was another platform, forming seven concentric descending circles. The floors were not all uniform, sometimes splitting into several pie-shaped sections, or two-stories high.

Once, long ago, it had been a beautiful place. During the day sunlight would stream in from the large spans of stained glass that formed the arched roof, casting soft rainbow hues. In the evening, the giant crystal at the top of the castle would shine through in an ethereal silver light.

But those days were long past. The glass had all shattered or melted into slag. The warped metal framing of a roof arched overhead like the bare ribcage of a long dead beast. Now, all that was left were row upon row of blackened stone shelves filled with charcoal and soot.

A soft, endless rain of ashes drifted down from a cold grey sky.

A lone boy stood at the edge of the top floor, looking down the terraced hall in quiet contemplation. His curled, golden locks of hair fluttered in the cold breeze, drifting across his green, intelligent eyes. His travelers cloak, breeches and boots were black with soot from traveling for days in this ashen land.

The boy frowned, his lips pressing into a thin line as he looked at the desolate library. He remembered how it used to be - bright and rich, endless shelves filled with all manners of knowledge. Tombs of history and science, lore and mysteries.

As he scanned through his memories of this place, his frown grew deeper and deeper. He remembered spending many weeks here, studying ancient tombs, working with other scholars to uncover the esoteric mysteries of the Exalted world. But none of those memories provided any clues to the principle mystery on his mind, the reason why he had come here. Somewhere in the ruins of this library a shard of his soul was hidden.

Reuniting with this shard would bring back memories and knowledge and power that he once had, but that was not even the main reason he needed to find it. The missing pieces of his soul were aching holes within him that longed to be filled.

His eyes hardened as he lifted the cold, black lantern in his hand and murmured softly, “Light of True History.”

His surroundings dimmed as a pale white light blossomed out from within the lantern and shone across the terraced hall. The soft, hazy light shimmered against the staircases and ash-covered bookshelves.

Light of True History was a key ability of the Keeper pathway, a knowledge domain spell that revealed the secrets of any object that the light touched. Broken objects would appear whole, important events in the past would come to life and play themselves back. The more obscure and significant the information, the brighter it would reflect the light.

After several seconds of letting the light shine down on the derelict library, the boy’s eyebrows furrowed and a look of concern passed over his face. He raised the lantern higher, stepping to the very edge of the platform as he peered down at the ashen shelves.

Nothing. The ghostly, ethereal light showed no reaction at all, merely illuminating the ashes and ruins in a soft grey light.

“How could this be…” The boy muttered to himself, not understanding what was happening. Even if this were a regular place, destroyed by fire, all the texts should have been temporarily reformed by the light, restoring the knowledge within them. But for this royal library which once full of history and arcane secrets to not show any reaction at all…

“Something is interfering with this…” Deep worried creases formed across his forehead as he stroked his chin, “Has the information here been sealed by a higher power? But even then, the act of sealing away knowledge would itself be a secret that would be uncovered by the light…”

His spiritual intuition triggered suddenly and he looked up to see a demi-human floating above him. This goat-legged girl with large doe-like eyes and small horns looked down at him with a smirk. Her short, multi-layered black dress bounced cutely as she said with a mocking tone, “You look confused, Argus. Do you need a hint?”

Argus felt a twinge of frustration at her words. A Keeper needing a hint? Ridiculous.

Rather than speak his mind he exhaled slowly, calmly replying, “Pix… I thought you left.”

“I did. But now I’m back.” Pix snuffed, crossing her arms as she floated down to his eye level, “What, do you want me to leave?”

“Honestly? No.” Argus said, his expression softening as he even managed to smile, “I need you here.”

The warm response caught the demi-girl off guard as she blinked in surprise. However she quickly returned to a petulant attitude as she rolled her eyes, “If you want a hint it’s not going to be cheap. And being sappy isn’t going to help you!”

“I wasn’t trying to be sappy. I think I absolutely do need you here to help me find my soul shard.” Argus replied, his expression turning serious, “The last shard I found was hidden in Okuron’s library, hidden within a tomb that was sealed by a hair imbued with the energies of Fate.”

“The shard was hidden in a way that was impossible for me to find on my own. I had to enlist the assistance of a friend attuned to Fate in order to find and release the shard.”

“This arrangement, hiding the shard and locking it with fate, could only be made by someone who had an intimate understanding of the knowledge and abilities in my possession after my soul was split… Otherwise I may have found another way to retrieve it. They wanted me to retrieve the soul at some point in time, but only when the conditions were right.”

“That person sounds annoying.” Pix jeered as she did a small twirl, letting her dress flutter around.

“Perhaps you are right… Because I believe that that person was, well, me.” Argus shrugged. He looked pointedly at Pix, “Am I right?”

“How would I know?” Pix rolled her eyes, lying down in the air while levitating.

“Because I think that the same kind of arrangement has been made in this location, and the condition to unlock this soul shard is you.” Argus said looking her in the eyes, “Pix, the Trickster Angel of Chaos.”

The light of galaxies swirled within his eyes as he laid his eyes on the demi-girl with a deeply contemplative look.

“I’m sure of it now. You must be the answer.” Argus nodded after a moment, “The reason the Light of True History isn’t revealing anything is because this space has been altered by one of your Chaos abilities. Or perhaps you’re actively interfering with my powers, preventing them for working.”

“Wrong!” Pix crossed her forearms in front of her face dramatically, before smirking once more, “But close enough.”

“So then, why doesn’t the Light find anything?”

Pix shrugged, “Because the history of what happened here was ÍÞæŠá€ ðsžšåÞяæ”

At the end of Pix’s sentence, her speech was suddenly drowned out by layers of dissonant noises. The jumbled, overlapping tones made it impossible to make out her words. Argus’ spiritual intuition gave off an alarm, warning him of the danger of the words.

“I’m sorry- what was that?” Argus frowned, not quite sure what he’d just heard. A sharp ringing echoed in his ears.

Pix had a casual expression on her face as she answered his question, continuing on as if she was oblivious to anything being wrong with her speech.

“óÞ¢ á ñæآà ðsž, don’t you remember? It was šåÞя æØ¢ £ޥ¿舐 ráÚÆ Ř§”

Argus keeled over as he suddenly felt a sharp pain in his head, as if he was getting stabbed by the unintelligible words being spoken by the girl. Each syllable was like a knife slicing into the grey matter behind his ears. A sick, nauseous feeling churned in his esophagus as he clutched at his ears with his hands.

“Stop!” He shouted, interrupting her.

Pix tilted her head at him, looking confused for a moment, “What’s wrong?”

“Whatever it is that you’re saying- whether it’s on purpose or not- please stop.” Argus closed his eyes as the pain continued to stab deep into his mind.

A thoughtful look crossed Pix’s face, “You can’t understand it?”

“It’s not just that I can’t understand it- It’s painful just to listen to it.” Argus frowned.

“Serves you right.” Pix frowned, “I told you back then, you were being too serious about hiding this. But you wanted to go all the way.”

The sharp pains were starting to recede, leaving behind a dull ache just behind his forehead. “All the way?”

“How do I say this…” Pix wondered out loud as she stroked her lips, looking up at the ceiling in thought.

“Before you started… all this…” She gestured vaguely to Argus and their surroundings, “You were pursuing secrets that you shouldn’t have been, like you’ve always done. And one day you came across something you called Hidden Knowledge. The very quality of knowing that information caused the person to become corrupted.”

A vague hint of a memory blinked to life deep within Argus’ mind upon hearing those words.

“What kind of information?” Argus asked.

“You wouldn’t tell me. For my ‘own safety’” Pix replied, miming air quotes.

“…I see. Knowledge that corrupts one simply by knowing it…” Argus looked down at the library below them as he frowned in contemplation. “After coming across it, my time was limited. In order to save myself I had to tear my soul apart.”

“You make it sound like an accident that way... But the truth is, you kept searching for these fragments, while making preparations on the side for the day you went too far.” Pix sighed, “You disappeared for several hundred years at a time, finding ways to seal the knowledge and minimize the corruptive effects…”

“Then one day you came to me and took me here.”

“You were already broken, at that point, carrying out your plan without fully remembering why you were doing it.” Her expression became complicated as a mix of nostalgia and melancholy twisted her lips, “You asked me to use my powers to help you cast an ancient and arcane ritual to seal away the history of this space. After performing the ritual, the knowledge about this room became sealed in a warped version of Hidden Knowledge.”

“I helped you split your soul, and ushered you off to NianXing at your instructions.” Pix said, “You told me that one day, when the time was right, you’d be back, and I promised you that when you returned I would release the Hidden Knowledge sealed within this room.”

“You said that when you returned, it meant you were ready to finally unravel the mysteries of the Divine Mandates.”