The inscription at the end of the hall glows with enough heat to surpass even invisible flames. Only the distance, and my own flames hold off the heat from reaching my friends. A sheen of condensation forms across each of the metallic walls, which slide down and adds to the stream that bubbles and vaporises the closer it flows to the mass of energy.

The hollow whistle cuts out, only to be replaced by a heavy buzz, the sound unnatural.

I throw out as much flames as I can, uncaring for the wasteful energy. My white blaze crashes into the back wall holding the inscription as Grímr steps forward, wings spread wide defensively, as glowing lines take form across his feathers. His strengthening inscription can protect him from a lot, but whatever this energy does, it will be too much for him.

Layered walls of flame rise before Grímr even as I try to eat away the lines for the inscription, but they refuse to melt. The freezing energy running through the wall in combination with the intense heat stops the wall from melting despite far exceeding temperatures that should allow it. I place both walls of physical and ethereal flame before us, hoping either stop the explosion I know is coming.

I know Grímr is trying to protect us, but I’m not about to let him take on that energy. An unreasonable amount of energy pumps into physical flame to pull him with me as I shoot both Leal and myself back. The permeating frost in the vents holds back my fire, but I push through it, forcing back the cold so I can have at least something physical to assist those physical flames.

Just as the strange energy is about to explode out over us, a bunch of things happen at once. The freezing energy running through the vents dies out; the heat bearing down on us from the other side of the tunnel reaches unimaginable levels for something other than fire; but most importantly, the metal wall holding the main inscription disintegrates from the heat.

All that energy has nothing holding it in shape anymore, and it simply explodes outward. Instead of travelling down the tunnel as intended, it obliterates the holding walls around it and destroys anything in its path. Surprisingly, thankfully, the energy and heat seems to diminish incredibly quickly once it unleashed, leaving us hardly worse for wear at the other side of what was once a corridor.

A sphere of empty space now lies where the back end of the hallway once stood, revealing much of the inner workings of this city-sized metal cube. We are given no time to gawk; the view is near instantly blocked again, this time by an ocean of water. It fills the tunnel in an instant.

I double down on my efforts to get us out, but Leal resists my attempts. Markings light across her body and water tears out from her arms. The stream is small, but it slams into the oncoming wave with speed. As soon as she connects with the large body of water, some markings dim, while others alight. The heavy flow bends around us, flowing to her will as if it weren’t even a question.

The water doesn’t stop. It continues to flow with the same intensity we saw from the other geysers. We stand withing the heavy rapid, with only Leal preventing it from crashing down on us.

I trust my suit to be waterproof, but I don’t think it could stand up to the immense pressure of this corridor-turned-geyser. Glancing around nervously, I wait for Leal to make open the path for us to leave. It’s clear that whatever this cube is, the danger is too great.

What is taking her so long? I glance up to my ursu friend and find her neither focusing on the water nor trying to back out of the tunnel. No, her gaze is stuck on the far end, where whatever inscription we came across just misfired and destroyed itself. Her curiosity is obvious, but this isn’t the time.

“We are leaving,” Grímr says before I can. “Leal!” he snaps when her attention remains on the far hall. It is enough to jolt her back to reality, so Grímr continues. “Create a path.”

Her eyes flicker to me, and she has the decency to look apologetic before pushing the water along the walls and giving us a way back out.

Surprisingly, the wall that closed in on us before the inscription activated opened again in time for the water to gush out without resistance. I fly out first, getting as much distance from the water as I can while Grímr with Leal on his back follows soon after.

What exactly happened in there? Did someone activate that intending to kill us? Or did it activate automatically from our presence? Whatever that energy was, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was strong enough to even harm Kalma or Tore. Though, actually killing them would be a stretch.

Now, what I’m not sure about is whether the inscription and the hallway we walked into were a trap or a weapon. If it is a trap, then what could be so important hidden inside? Alternatively, if it is a weapon, and that hallway was supposed to be a sort of cannon's barrel rather than a corridor, then what is it intended to battle?

As I hover with physical flames holding me aloft, I compare the flow of the tunnel we just came from to the other geysers. The intensity is rather similar. Water blasts out of the massive cube at an even distance between all three on this face. Have each of them exploded too? Or are they intended to operate as geysers?

Well, even if something might be hidden within, it’s not worth charging head first into all that water for it. If Leal asks to go, I won’t let her.

…why am I so sure she will ask?

I join Grímr as he lands on the diagonal sands halfway up the dune. Laying back in the sands, and sigh in annoyance. How is it that after being in land prone to rainfall and coming across plenty of water mages, that I come closest to being drowned after my return to the wasteland? The place that is supposed to have none at all.

Leal takes a seat beside me. Her hand recoils from the sand as if stung, but simply looks down in annoyance after a moment and places her gloved hand down again. I keep my senses sharp on the sand in case any sand-worms decide to take a nibble.

The ursu looks up at the cube again as Grímr tries to dig out enough sand to allow himself to rest.

“So…” Leal starts, and I groan, knowing what’s coming. “I still want to look inside. Now that the defensive inscription is gone, can we try again?”

“No,” Both Grímr and I say in unison.

There’s only so much you can let your curiosity sway your survival instincts. I’m now worried about her more than ever. If she is ever to go her own way, I cannot trust her with her own survival. How she lasted so long in the New Vetus military, I haven’t a clue.

She is disappointed, but she doesn’t argue further. Obviously, she knows it isn’t wise, at least intellectually.

“I still need to create a marking to generate water hyle, and hopefully resist the drain of the sands. Can you give me a couple days for that?”

I nod without delay. “As long as you don’t try to get in that cube again.”

There will be no issues staying around here for a while. It might even be good to observe the structure for a while to determine if there is some creature operating it from within, or it is abandoned. The purpose of the cube still eludes me, so any information we might gleam from it would be helpful. So long as we don’t risk entry again.

Leal sheepishly turns away at my accusatory glare.

I’m not in any hurry to reach the Agglomerate. No matter how many delays we might face, the trip will almost certainly be shorter than if I’d chosen to walk as the rest of the áed would. I intend to enjoy this time, rather than rush through things. The last few years have essentially been non-stop stress for me, so I should take this time to relax before I’m allowed back into the pact nations.

Even if we wait here a few weeks, it won’t be all bad. It’s some good time I can spend practising my spearmanship. Even if the fight against the chthonic didn’t go as well as I wanted, the skill Bunny’s training instilled combined with my extensive battle experience — even if not directly using a spear — has helped me grow to a rather capable level, particularly for my age. But it isn’t enough. I shouldn’t need to rely on my flames when things get hard. I want my spear-work alone to be enough to allow me to stand my ground.

I’d learnt how important it is to preserve your energy out in the wasteland, but in that cube, I had no choice. I expended quite a lot in the panic of the situation. While Leal gets started on designing her markings, I think I’m going to take a piece out of the cube. It’ll be good retribution for almost killing us.

Flying in front of a section not drowning in water, I push forward a ball of white flame to melt the steel of its exterior. It doesn’t melt. I’d expected it, but as soon as the exterior started heating, the freezing energy bled into the metal. There are likely vents along the entire structure. I spread my fire over the surface, looking for any weak points where the cooling isn’t as effective, but the cooling isn’t anywhere near what it was inside the tunnel. It still prevents me from melting the metal, but it glows red and buckles in places from the differential of heat.

Spear in hands, I pass my flames through the relic and feel the incredible heat cover a small section of metal before me. Leal and Grímr have descended beneath the mist below, so there’s no need to worry about them feeling this intense blaze.

If not for my thermal sense, the view of metal melting as if by itself would be incredibly odd. The spear is clearly intended for battle and not to allow me to consume more. To have the flamethrower creating ripples through the air so far out in front of me consumes a hell of a lot of energy when compared to simply coating the blade-tip, but I make that back with the metal consumed. I’m expending energy to acquire energy, but it works. Also, I hardly imagine any of my race will consume from something with this much water around, so I don’t really have to worry about taking resources from future tribes.

❖❖❖

Over the next few days, Leal and Grímr spent most of their time in the mist while I stayed above. The moisture apparently far more forgiving and comfortable to them than the dry air of the wasteland. I practised my spear forms mostly, sometimes chasing down swarms of jerboas to practice my accuracy. The boredom eventually got to me though, and I braved the mist with full body coverings in place. While I didn’t stay down there long because of how uncomfortable it left me, it gave me a much better view of the structure hidden beneath the fog.

Four massive pillars hold the cube aloft at each corner. Each leg widened at the base, but they remained only half buried within the sand, leaving sections where one could crawl underneath the pillars. The cube was not built into any solid foundation. Surely, whoever had the capability of constructing such an immense building was aware of the common knowledge of the eastern races. Yet they chose not to dig. Why?

The massive waterfalls disperse into the mist mostly before they reach the sands below, but not all is gone by the time it reaches the ground. Small pools flow downward underneath the cube, but the streams disappear before they can combine at a central point.

Grímr has been keeping an eye on Leal while she’s been busy in her sketches and planning, both making sure she’s safe, and that she doesn’t foolishly attempt to climb into the cube while we’re not looking. I return for the nights to watch over them through the Ember Moon. While Grímr has gained a decent amount of control over his body when it morphs within the crimson light, it is not so great that he can be expected to fight. It is no issue for me to watch over them during the short time Eldest Ember makes her existence known.

The glowing red eyes, jagged feathers and brutal mace of a tail caused quite the scare when Leal first saw him change like that, but she settled quickly. Despite her curiosity about the change, she couldn’t give any definitive answers to what caused it any more than Grímr had figured out himself. Which was essentially nothing. I like to think of it as a blessing of Eldest Ember’s protective flames… but I didn’t really have anything to back that up other than it only occurring during her time of the night.

It is the fifth day resting besides the cube that Leal finalised her designs. She pricks her legs with a needle, following the sketch of a marking along her skin with an impressive level of detail and precision. I know Leal once told me they needed to pierce the skin to apply the markings, but to watch her do it to herself without flinching seems odd. I’d burned through enough fleshy creatures to know they instinctively recoil from pain, with the exception of the highly enhanced. Did it not hurt to puncture her skin?

I watch on, but don’t interrupt. Last thing I want is to distract her while she’s doing such precise work.

These aren’t the first she’s applied today, but they will be the last. Leal, almost without prompting, had gone in depth about what each would let her do. The ones she is applying now are small, but should limit the rate at which she loses internal water to the sands below. Even walking on the surface will be easy for her with this. It won’t hold out against time, which is the reason for the much larger one across her chest and stomach.

Expertly woven into the marking already covering much of her torso, the most complex of the markings she applied would give her a method to generate water hyle without an external source, or relying on her minimal, natural regeneration.

The purpose of this large addition to her already complex marking, is to extract water hyle from the nutrition of what she eats. The conversion is expensive, and will apparently double her consumption, but finding food out in the desert is far easier than finding water. If this will allow her and Grímr to last indefinitely out here, then all the better.

Finally, she’s done stabbing herself with the sharp needle carrying the strange ink into her skin. Leal activates her marking immediately and the water hyle floods through the formerly black lines making them glow in a subtle clear blue. The thick fur growing from the coloured skin experiences the flow of hyle as well, and remains slightly discoloured from the rest of her fur when she deactivates the marking.

“Shall we find your Agglomerate?” Satisfied with her markings, Leal is intent on moving out again, and nods in agreement.

As the three of us fly away from the deep pit hiding the strange cube, I join Leal in her longing glance back. If not for the danger it posed, I would have loved to find out what was in that strange construction. Maybe one day, should I ever become strong enough that not even water can stop me, I’ll come back.

I snort silently to myself. Like that will ever happen.