Lillene

Enjoy!

The Near Gate wasn’t on a ley line. By now, that didn’t surprise Serenity; for all that he thought of ley lines as hugely important to a World, it was clear they weren’t everything. Both of the Near Points he’d seen before were also miles from the closest ley line. Now that he had three examples, Serenity was becoming confident that the location wasn’t coincidence. 

He couldn’t be completely confident yet; more of any planet (except possibly Earth) was miles from a ley line than was close to one. Even so, it seemed plausible that either ley lines inhibited Near Point formation or Near Points pushed ley lines away. Serenity couldn’t tell which, yet.

As they approached the Near Gate, Serenity saw a large building in the distance. He expected to pass by it, so he was shocked when Stojan Tasi brought the flyer to a halt directly in front of the building’s entrance.

The building was in poor shape. Its walls were made of some sort of pale pink stone; at least, Serenity thought that was the color he saw behind the dark grunge that coated much of the surface. There were a number of places where the wall had clearly been struck and breached; Serenity also couldn’t see a roof. There was only a little rubble outside the wall at the scars in the walls; it looked like attacks from the outside, someone breaking in rather than something breaking out.

The entrance looked like it had once had a large door or perhaps a gateway. It was hard to tell, since whatever once filled the gap was long gone. The one thing Serenity could tell about it for certain was that it was huge and a little oddly shaped; while it was about ten feet wide, it was more than twice that height. It was more like a door for a giant than a normal entrance. It also had an arch at the top that made the middle at least two feet higher than the sides, which didn’t make sense if the height was for any reason Serenity could think of other than the sheer display.

Inside the wall, Serenity could see stone rubble all over the floor. It was deepest near the various rents in the wall, but there were also shattered slates that had to have once been roof tiles all over the place. The building seemed to be one giant room with a single large pillar in the center; that would be a huge span to cover without any internal supports, similar to a modern conference building. Something seemed odd about that, though, even odder than the gigantic construction with apparently just stone.

It took Serenity a second look to realize that the oddity he was seeing was that the slate roof tiles didn’t seem to have any supports; there was no way a roof made only of slate tiles should work.

Unless it was supported by magic.

The other option, that there had once been something there that disappeared later and wasn’t magic couldn’t be completely dismissed either. There was no organic material visible anywhere. It was possible there never had been, but that seemed odd to Serenity; almost all buildings, even stone buildings, used wood for something and they’d passed some wooded areas on the way to the Near Gate. The trees were all long dead but still standing; surely they’d have been useful back when the building was built.

On the other hand, the idea of a magically supported roof over a ritual site made some sense. When the weather was bad or it wasn’t in use, it could be protected. When the weather was good enough or there was a need for a ritual to have access to the sky, it could be opened. The magic would have to be carefully managed to avoid interfering with any rituals, but that was certainly possible.

There was one other thing that made Serenity think that the magical support was likely: there were no nails. At least, if there were, they hid exceptionally well in the debris on the ground. Without descending from the flyer, he couldn’t be certain there were also no nail holes in the tiles.

If it was a magical roof, Serenity could safely say that it was in place when the magic failed. The roofing slate was everywhere.

“It was in better shape the last time I was here,” Stojan Tasi muttered. “You could still make out most of the old ritual circle from the blast marks.”

“Blast marks?” Serenity looked around and didn’t see anything he’d have called a blast mark. The ceiling appeared to have fallen, but there weren’t any paths in it of an explosion happening after it fell. Perhaps an explosion damaged the supporting spell and it fell afterwards?

The walls mostly looked like they were damaged from the outside, so that didn’t help either. If there was an explosion inside the walls, it must not have damaged the stone beyond discoloration. If there were marks on the stone, Serenity was fairly sure they were concealed by the gunk that seemed to have accumulated. He wasn’t certain what the gunk was; ash mixed with water, maybe?

Stojan Tasi nodded. “On the floor. Whatever the last ritual that was held here did, it also cracked the stone around the circle and left streaks of soot. I think some of them may have been the participants. Stojan Aith said this was the site of the Vraks’ final ritual, but she was never willing to tell me how she knew that or what it was. You’ll be able to see more once we enter the tunnels; I think that was a second blast, but I’ve never been more than a few feet into them. Aith was unhappy I went even that far and I wasn’t willing to sacrifice my life for simple curiosity.”

Serenity nodded with a frown. This sounded like more than one ancient site he’d seen over the years. Most were dangerous more from the building collapsing than from anything else, but there was always the chance of a monster nest or an ancient trap. Newer traps tended to be associated with more recent inhabitants, but if there was anything here it had to be a monster. People left more signs of their presence unless they were hiding.

Serenity wasn’t worried about any monsters or even people that might be present. Neither he nor Stojan Tasi was weak; even more than that, they were both resistant to the exact types of magic that would be the most common here. 

The wide pillar in the center of the formerly huge open space was, naturally, where Stojan Tasi took them. When he hopped out of the flyer, Serenity followed him. 

Serenity leaned down and set a tablet on the floor a few feet away from the flyer. It was made of the improved metra that he’d created with his Rift; the stuff was a great surface for durable but temporary runework. Serenity then reached into a pocket and pulled out a clay token that he held out to Stojan Tasi. “Here, take this before we go into the tunnels. It’s a teleportation token; break it and you’ll end up at that destination marker.”

“Teleportation token?” Stojan Tasi looked either concerned or confused; Serenity wasn’t certain which. “Are you sure you should be giving me one? Those are expensive.”

Serenity shrugged. “They’re expensive if they’re permanent or long-lasting. That one will work for a day, maybe three if you’re not teleporting far. The spell’s the hard part; the token itself is just an anchor that can be easily broken. I set the spells on it this morning, since I knew we’d be heading into tunnels.”

It wasn’t as complicated a spell as he often used, but a simple spell was enough when he could trust the other person to survive on their own long enough to break it. The more complicated a spell was, the easier it was to mess it up.

Stojan Tasi still seemed hesitant, so Serenity decided he’d better push a little. “If you want to come down the tunnels with me, take the token. All it cost me was some time and mana; that’s cheap compared to having to find another City Manager. I’d rather go alone than take you without giving you a way out.”

“I have my own measures,” Tasi objected again.

Serenity growled under his breath. Why was Stojan Tasi being difficult? Serenity hadn’t evaluated the City Lord’s protections, which was reason enough to give him another, but it wasn’t the only reason. “And you should save them for when you need them. I’m the person pushing you to come here; that means I should keep your safety in mind.”

That seemed to get through to Stojan Tasi as he moved the hand that held the token closer to himself. “You have your own token?”

Serenity nodded. “Of course.”

Stojan Tasi seemed to think for a moment before he nodded sharply and turned to the pillar. “This is an illusion, but not a magical one. It’s not solid, but until you’re basically on top of it, you can’t see that. Stojan Aith said it was covered by a tapestry when it was in use, which made it even harder to tell.”

An optical illusion? Serenity hadn’t expected that. When he took a careful look at the pillar, however, he could see it; there was a break in the pillar that was perfectly matched by the stone behind it. Serenity wasn’t sure how that worked, because the illusion seemed to work from any reasonable angle, rather than only from one where everything had to be perfect. It was carved stone; how could you even do that?

Serenity shook his head. It was clearly an example of a case where skill was more important than Skills; there was nothing magical about it. In fact, adding some kind of magical misdirection to something this good would simply draw attention to it. There was, however, one question it raised in Serenity’s mind. If the Vrak had control of the site, they ought to be able to keep others out. “Why did they bother?”

Stojan Tasi shrugged. “I’ve wondered that myself. I can’t tell if it’s an additional protection to keep out people who shouldn’t know about it or if it’s to protect it against their own people. It doesn’t matter now.”

Serenity nodded. That was fair; the Vrak were gone.

As they moved through the opening in the pillar, Serenity noticed that it was clearly built either to move things or made for a species that was larger than humans. Unfortunately, the tunnel seemed to be a sheer drop rather than the sort of gentle slope the White Tiger made. Serenity glanced at Stojan Tasi. “Do we just jump?”

The City Lord nodded. “It’s about twenty feet down. Either of us can manage that. I also have a rope ladder if you prefer; it’s what I used the last time I came.”

It was odd that there wasn’t a built-in ladder, but perhaps it was like the roof: perhaps the Vrak used magic. “Let’s use the ladder.”

That wasn’t the last sheer drop in the tunnel. It seemed like the Vrak built their tunnels almost like a giant set of stairs instead of the ramp Serenity expected; they were approximately flat for forty feet, then had a twenty foot drop, over and over again. Serenity could tell that each drop took them farther than it should; the effect seemed more pronounced than at either of the Near Points Serenity had seen before. 

Serenity was glad he had the teleportation tokens. They’d work to get the two of them out of the tunnel even if climbing back up the drops proved harder than expected.

All thoughts of exit were banished from Serenity’s head the moment he reached the core. He hadn’t realized he had expectations for what he’d see; he’d seen a number of different World Cores with different shapes and different damage. He wouldn’t have been surprised by any of them.

He was surprised by what he saw of Tzintkra’s core. It had been shattered into a large number of surprisingly small pieces. It also looked like the pieces had been shuffled at some point in the past. There was new core material bridging many of the cracks, but it didn’t remove the crack; it merely connected the two now-separate pieces.

No wonder Tzintkra hated Stojan Aith. It was a miracle the planet hadn’t died with that level of damage.

Lillene

The Vrak are weird. I think they’re even more alien than the Tsarualk.