Spear of Clouds Unfurled 5.9

"So… according to this section, this is all about a story of a great serpent that dreamt the world into being," I said, glancing between the translated text and eight different faces of the puzzle-pillar. The pillar stood out amidst the mostly featureless desert, directly underneath the artificial constellation marked as 'The Great Serpent' in the book.

We were back in the dungeon, a week after the very inept attempt to assassinate us. I had managed to get Laera to end up paying for the translation of the ancient Caith book, since it was something the entire Guild would benefit from, and Meria had surprised me that morning by delivering the finished product.

I didn't know if Elder S'corra had just oversold how difficult it would be for her, or if she'd spent every waking moment on the text, but however she'd done it, it seemed like she'd done a pretty good job. Most of the book was rendered into perfectly readable Valorian prose, and in a few sections that had metaphors she wasn't entirely sure how to translate she gave several theories and how they might fit into what were a series of stories tied to the different constellations.

"Right, and how does that help us?" said Velevir, taking a swig from a waterskin and pulling the light hood she had drawn up against the sun further down, which was almost completely set. Despite being the strongest of us, most pale dhampir disliked the harsh sun a lot more than beastkin, and Velevir always emerged from the dungeon with a bit of sunburn, whereas I wasn't even sweating anymore in my light armour. Instead, the bright sunlight just felt pleasant. The dryness, not so much, but the sun was lovely.

"It must be, like, a riddle," said Nathan, peering over my shoulder.

"Or perhaps we need to create some kind of phrase or sentence from the different symbols?" I said. "Correctly tell the story? Or say what the moral is?"

"Great, and how are we supposed to do that?" said Velevir. "We can't read Caith. Or old Caith, or whatever it is."

"No," I said, rummaging in my bag for the original copy, bringing it out, and opening it to the same page. "But Outlanders have some kind of 'boosted' ability to learn languages. So, maybe I can find the same symbols as the pillar has, and then find them in the text, and work out their meaning via the translation."

"Great, and what do we do in the meantime?" said Velevir.

"'Farm' the undead?" I said with a shrug, using Nathan's weird 'gamer' terminology. "You don't need me for them anyway."

And so, while my friends repeatedly failed the puzzle and summoned a quartet of armoured undead which they smashed apart with by now practised movements, I sat in the lee of a dune and began trying to figure out the basics of the Caith language. An impossible task without a translation, but with one? Coupled with whatever changes the dungeon had made to us when it summoned us here? It was not impossible for my language boosted mind at least, which began to immediately see patterns, rules, and connections.

"Alright," I said, three hours later, peering at the pillar and pointing at one of the panels etched with a Caith symbol. "So, I think I know, more or less, the sequence to tell the story in a kind of abridged form..." I said, holding up the original book. "This is a Caithian creation myth, apparently they think the universe was formed from the Dreams of a Great Serpent. Or, well, that the universe we experience is the dream of the Great Serpent, which is somehow built upon the foundations of a 'more real' reality that it's sleeping in."

Velevir snorted. "Savage nonsense," she said.

I raised an eyebrow at her.

"What?" she said, a defensive note in her voice.

"None of us here follow your religion either, Vel," I said. "We don't mock your beliefs, you don't need to believe what the Caith do to not call them stupid—well, assuming they still have similar beliefs, this place is pretty old…"

"But a giant snake that dreams? That's crazy," said Velevir.

"To me, your creation story about the Goddess of the Moon weaving Alaria from the light of the stars doesn't make a whole lot of sense," I said. "But I don't want to mock or belittle you and your dearly held beliefs; that just seems cruel."

I had made at least a cursory attempt to learn about how the dominant religions in Guildport functioned, out of a desire not to unintentionally offend people—particularly my patients. I hadn't always been successful, and had accidentally slightly offended a Beastkin woman from the east of the southern continent of Carritas by offering her tea on a holy day where she was only supposed to drink water, but for the most part I had avoided any particular blunders, and people generally relaxed when I explained that things were very different where I was from and I’d appreciate it if they could explain things to me.

"Yeah, but you're not from Alaria, you're from Outside, from Erde—of course you're weird," said Velevir, gesturing vaguely. "And Mousin- Lord Mousington is Fey, so I don't know what he believes…"

Lord Mousington, who was licking the back of his paw and washing behind his ear spoke up. "Alaria arose from the Feywilde as its somewhat less vibrant reflection," he said with so much confidence that I was almost inclined to believe him on the force of the statement alone.

Velevir rolled her eyes and glanced at Nathan, perhaps for some kind of backup, but he just shrugged.

"I ain't really religious, babe," he said. "But if it, you know, makes you happy, gives meaning and shit, that's cool." He grinned. "But come on, a massive snake making the world sounds pretty rad though, right?"

Velvir sighed. "Alright, I take the point, Charlie." She smiled at Nathan. "And I guess it is a little bit 'rad.'"

"Anyway," I said, gesturing to a symbol. "I think we are supposed to retell the story, and this is probably the first symbol of it: it's associated with beginnings and ends."

I pressed it, and it lit up blue. I moved to the one directly opposite it on the pillar.

"And this one is associated with the universe and stars, or sometimes dreams. So, I think together they say something like 'In the beginning of the Universe…'"

I pressed it, it lit up green, but gave no indication that I had chosen a correct sequence.

"Here's where I'm not entirely sure," I said, gesturing to two symbols. "One talks about the Great Snake, the other is 'shedding' or 'casting off.' That follows the story about how it shed its skin, which formed the land."

"So 'Great Snake' and then 'shedding,''" said Nathan. "Why's that hard?"

"Because as far as I can tell, verbs and nouns like to move around in Caith," I said. "And I don't know all of the rules—I'm not sure S'corra did either, to be honest. She mentions in several places the meaning is ambiguous because of 'unusual' word order."

"Well, just pick one, if it doesn't work, we'll try the other," said Nathan.

I nodded, hesitating for a moment before going with my gut feeling and pressing the 'shedding, casting off,' and then 'The Great Serpent.'

"So, in the beginning of the universe, there was only the Great Snake swimming in a sea of stars, it cast off its skin, which formed the land,'" I said, moving onto the fourth symbol as I retold the story as best as I could.

I was positive that such a feat of language would have been impossible before arriving on Alaria. But whatever the dungeon had done to me when I had arrived here, changed my body, given me a knack with empathomancy and 'bioempathy' or however it was I healed, it had clearly done something to the areas of my brain concerned with language too. My ability to retain words and rules, to use context to come to a coherent possible meaning, and, more than even that, to swiftly get a feel for a language was so much better than it had been back on Earth, and than anyone I had met here on Alaria. Even Ritah, who I was beginning to suspect was a genius, and who spoke like a dozen languages, couldn’t compare to us Outlanders.

"But it was lonely," I said, continuing the story.

I pressed the fifth symbol; it lit up orange.

"For there was nothing apart from the great serpent."

I pressed the sixth.

"And so, after a long time waiting beneath the stars."

I pressed the second symbol again, which shifted from green to pink.

"It decided that it would dream companions for itself."

I pressed the seventh symbol, which glowed purple.

"And it lay down and dreamed. "

I pressed the eighth, everyone tensed, since that was when the sequence usually failed and we were attacked. Nothing, however, happened, and the runes continued their steady glow.

"OK, that's new," said Velevir. "Every time we got to eight, it failed. Keep going."

"And so, it dreamed of the companions it wished to have."

I pressed the seventh for a second time.

"And as it dreamed…"

I pressed the eighth again.

"The universe became less lonely."

The touched fifth and second, once again trusting my gut with the inverted verb noun order.

"Because from its dreams sprung companions."

I pressed the sixth.

"And a whole new universe began."

I pressed the second and then, finally, the first.

There was a kerthunk, and then a grinding sound, and all of us jumped backwards, weapons raised.

But this time, no undead clawed from the sand, and instead the desert beneath us began to vibrate. The sun, which had been pulling beneath the horizon rapidly vanished, plunging the entire desert into night. Overhead, the constellation of the Great Snake began to shine extremely brightly, almost blinding in its intensity, and then it began to move.

It was wonderful, and a smile tugged at my lips. I didn't know if the dungeon had designed this, or if it had been instructed to by whoever had once controlled it, but for all the subterranean complexes' horrors and dangers, this was beautiful, stunning, spectacular—

"Uh, guys?" said Nathan, gesturing up to where the snake of stars was twisting and writhing and… growing bigger? "Is it coming towards us?"

Of course it was. Of course it couldn't just be something lovely. We were in a deadly dungeon—so it wasn't a nice spectacle we got as a reward for telling a lovely story, it was a horrific star serpent that was coming to try and kill us.

The stars that composed its body began to glow with increased intensity as the monster closed on us, opening its jaws and unleashing a beam of searing starlight that crashed into the desert beneath and sent super-heated sand flying as we all dove out of the way, Velevir, Mousington, and myself conjuring barriers to protect ourselves, Nathan using his heavy shield to block the flash-glassed projectiles.

A crackle of lightning from Moustington was the first answer to the monster, followed by an arrow from my bow that struck one of the stars and shattered, eliciting a growl of pain from the creature.

And it was a creature, I could sense its emotions, its rudimentary, animal-like mind. More than that, as I focused on it, I found I could sense several streamers of thought, tiny, minuscule, and so faint that I had never noticed them trailing off towards something greater…

I immediately pulled back, realising what I was sensing: the dungeon. The vast, incomprehensible and alien mind that had knocked me out cold when the others had fought the ‘laser crab’ at the end of the second, watery floor.

I didn’t know if it was just because this creature was more complex that it had that link, or if my empathy was getting stronger. I knew my stamina was a lot greater than it had been before, a result of using my powers for hours every day and killing loads of monsters and absorbing their mana, but I hadn’t realised that the scariest of my powers, the ability to sense and project and rewrite emotions, was getting more powerful.

Would I be, one day, a full-blown telepath? That was a frightening thought. It was invasive and distracting and often distressing enough seeing the emotions of everyone around me. The idea of hearing thoughts could very well drive me insane.

But all of that worry was not something to focus on while a giant star serpent was trying to devour me and my friends.

Nathan came up from his roll and smashed his sword against his shield, drawing the monster’s attention away from me as I knocked another arrow and fired it, striking another of the stars, but not visibly damaging anything.

The snake crashed into the desert, the edge of its fang raking across Nathan’s shield with an arc of sparks. Velevir took the opportunity to pounce, swinging her massive hammer and imbuing it with burning silver-bright energy that smashed into the monster’s side and sent it reeling, pain and anger radiating through its emotions, but leaving behind no obvious damage that I could see either.

I backed up as the snake began to try and crush and maim Velevir and Nathan, who rolled and dipped and ducked and dived with agility that belied their heavy armour. Mousington’s blasts of lightning were the only thing that seemed to be able to harm it, with the starlight that comprised its body flickering in places after he struck it. My arrows, however, continued to do nothing except annoy it, and after the eighth I stopped firing them.

My first impulse was to start conjuring illusions to harry it, but if Nathan’s enchanted blade and Velevir’s blazing hammer weren’t doing much to it, then my still rather fumbling magical efforts would hardly do better.

Instead, I focused on manipulating its emotions. Not blankety making it terrified, as I usually did, and which even monsters grew resistant to, but instead trying to time my empathic assaults: giving it bursts of unease and fear just before it struck, filling it with more confidence after it missed to try and make it think it had connected, and turning on and off its rage, making it suddenly calm, and randomly making it sad.

The effects weren’t as immediately noticeable as when I made a creature terrified. The giant stellar serpent didn’t scream and turn to run, but as the battle went on I could both feel and see it growing more and more off balance, its attacks less controlled and considered, its movements jerky and dizzy, and its mind increasingly distracted and confused as I did the magical equivalent of putting its emotions through a tumble dryer.

Confusion, all its own, grew higher and higher in its mind, and its focus waned, allowing my friends to land blow after blow against it. One of the beams of starlight joining it together, after a particularly vicious strike from Velevir, winked out entirely, shattering like glass and making the monster roar in pain as half of its body stopped working properly.

That was the beginning of the end, and, unable to properly protect one of its sides, the rest of my party pinned it down and hit it until the last of the light in its body winked out. I felt its monstrous mind evaporate, and large chunks of crystal that had been the ‘stars’ in its body thunked down into the churned sand.

“Is it dead?” said Velevir, panting, keeping her hammer raised and waiting for my confirmation.

“Yes,” I nodded. “Nothing but us as far as I can sense.”

The dhampir woman, whose armour was a bit dented and who felt like she had something broken exhaled and fell to one knee, running a hand along her long white braid.

“Goddess,” she said. “This dungeon is a monster. Level three, and already things this hard? Ugh.”

“We did OK though,” said Nathan, shuffling over to her and flexing his gauntleted hand. “Hey, Chezza, have a look at my wrist? Fucking kills.”

I moved over and reset the hairline fracture, and then dealt with Velevir’s bruised ribs, and then Mousington’s ‘sore tummy’ that was unrelated to fighting and I told him was probably because he’d been eating raw fish that had been baking in his bag all day.

After that, we began gathering up the crystal from the monster’s body, both whole and shattered, which Mousington said was highly magically conductive, and would probably sell for a lot of money. As I was carefully picking sharp shards up and putting them in a heavy leather satchel, however, something else caught my eye.

Black, triangular, flat, and roughly the size of a plectrum, it had the ancient Caith symbol for ‘Serpent’ on it. Judging by where it had fallen, it had been part of the monster’s head, and it had ridges and grooves in the side that made me think it was supposed to slide into something.

“Some kind of key, maybe?” I said to Nathan, showing him it.

“Yeah, could be,” he said, accepting it from my hands. “Maybe we need to kill the guardians of all the shrines, and get the key to unlock the last boss? Or maybe it's a map or something?”

I looked at him dubiously. “Really?”

“Yeah, that’s how it was in all the games,” he said. “Series of challenges and all that, yeah?”

I considered arguing that this was nuts, before remembering the first floor’s ‘boss’ and the massive fans to counter its sandstorm, and reminding myself that this place had been ‘set up’ as a series of challenges by a mad dungeon with god-like powers. Dammit, he was probably right.

“I wonder if we’ll get to keep it when we leave the dungeon,” he said, holding up the shard of dark stone. “Or if we have to do the shrines—”

“Since when are we calling them ‘shrines?’” I asked. “I mean, I guess it isn’t a terrible name since they’re associated with a mythos…”

“—all in one run?” he continued, ignoring me.

A ‘run,’ I had worked out, meant a single delve into the dungeon.

“Please, please make it so we don’t have to do them all in one go,” groaned Velevir. “We’ll be in here for days.”

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