Verlon stumbled awake as he forced himself to his knees. Or at least he tried to. His body wouldn’t respond as if the entirety of his nervous structure had failed. The paralysis proved to be temporary and faded quickly as he regained motion.

His hand found its way to his head as he felt a migraine settle down. “Ah, hell.” He groaned and moved onto his feet as he picked up his stuff that had fallen along with him.

An ear-splitting ringing echoed about the hall, seemingly coming from everywhere at the same time. If he got his hands on the device making so much noise, he would rend it part by part. He shook his head out to clear out the daze as he tried to come to his senses. Focus was required with the sudden change in the environment.

The red emergency lights were pulsing in time with the ringing noise. It was quite annoying as if asking him to shoot the lights. He moved quickly drawing his rifle as he realized it was an alarm. He must’ve tripped it when he messed with the golden orb. It was a bad idea, to begin with; he really should’ve talked himself out of it, to begin with.

Too late for that though. He looked around for the orb, intent on taking it with him so the alarm’s activation wouldn’t be fruitless. It was gone. The orb had endangered his life for was nowhere to be seen as if it had just up and walked away. And who knows? Maybe it did just woke up and walked away. Weirder things had happened in regard to relics. It pissed him off if he was to be honest. He potentially endangered himself for nothing.

Verlon wasted no time making for the door to the conference room. There was no point sticking around and waiting for whatever security systems this place had. He peaked out the door, not spotting anything irregular. He heard it though.

A pounding noise came from down the hall by the stairs. It sounded like metal beating against metal with far too much force to be natural. He froze for a moment as he tried to figure it out. Maybe the security systems had jammed and the noise came from repeatedly trying to deploy. This place was old after all, so jams weren’t out of the question. Whatever it was made so much damn noise it drowned out the alarm with each hit.

Too bad the stairs were the only way out. He would have to figure the noise out one way or another. He gave one last glance up and down the hallway before slipping out into it. He held his rifle up and moved cautiously as he paced along the red-lit hallway. Anything that even twitched would get a bullet.

Part of him was conflicted as he moved forward. He wanted to just avoid whatever device or beast was making the noise so he could escape and head back home. The other side of him wanted a fight. He wanted to blow off steam and maybe get some loot to boot. It was an attractive idea, though one that felt shortsighted.

The noise only grew louder as he drew closer to the staircase. The cause became apparent far sooner than he would’ve liked. The security door that blocked the way down had several dents that hadn’t been there the first time. One of the dents pushed in further in time with the thunderous pounding.

Whatever was beating on the door had some serious strength. The security door was Empyreon Gold after all, and it had its fair share of resistance to warping of most kinds. The several dents all over the door just went to show how strong the thing behind it was. He could probably take it.

Verlon didn’t know if he should be thankful or not that the gate didn’t have a window. He wanted to see what was making all the racket, but doing so would allow it to see him. Truly a chilling thought considering the state of the miasma down here.

Seeing as he wasn’t in immediate danger, but probably would be soon, he decided to get out while he still could. There was no point in killing himself when the escape was open at the moment. That being said, a part of him wanted to face whatever thing beat on the door with such force. The feeling grew with each passing moment, though he shoved it down.

He would be a fool to not realize what was going on. The increasingly aggressive nature of his thoughts seemed to be obvious in hindsight. There was a high chance the miasma had begun to contaminate him with its corruptive presence. Mental changes were among the first symptoms of low-level miasma poisoning.

Should he take a Sun tablet? It would put off the miasma poisoning and allow him some reprieve. They were expensive though. Five silver coins for a single tablet made him decide to press on without the medicine. He would just escape and then it wouldn’t be an issue. The miasma would clear out of his system on his own once he left the mire.

He paused for a mere moment as he began to walk up the stairs. Was that even a wise decision? Or his own decision? Growth in greedy behavior was a well-documented symptom of miasma poisoning along with increased aggression and easy agitation. Was the thought to save his Sun tablets an untainted one? Did it even matter since escape wasn’t too far away?

The worries plagued him as he raced up the staircase. He was still cautious, of course, but he moved far quicker than he had originally. There was no telling how long the security door would hold back whatever was trying to brute force its way through.

Verlon easily climbed the flights of stairs and arrived back at the broken door. A loud clang came from down the stairs. His heart began to pound in his chest as he raced around the balcony to his rope. His hands shook slightly as he untied the knot in time to hear a boom from the other side of the rotunda.

He wasted no time swinging back out to the statue and stabilizing himself before his ascent. Whatever lurked in the red glow of the emergency lights was moving fast based on the sounds of heavy footsteps from the hallway. He moved as fast as he could, one hand over the other, as he climbed the rope. The entire time he moved, he made sure to pull the rope up with him so that it couldn’t grab on and climb up with him.

His arms ached as he rapidly climbed the hundred feet to the cave. Verlon pulled himself over the lip of the cave and yanked on the rope. In the darkness below, shadowed by the faint red lights, something was moving. He pulled and pulled, hauling up the last of the rope as he saw two glowing pinpoints from the balcony. They stared up at him, menacingly as their glow barely illuminated what looked to be a gaunt face.

Verlon lept back as he felt an instinctual chill of danger down his spine. He didn’t even bother to gather his rope as he ran up out of the cave. The sense of danger stuck with him as he entered the jungle. In a split second, he decided to not even go check his camp and just leave the Floating Mesa. That face, almost human but not quite, filled him with dread.

There was no telling what that thing could do. Considering its strength, it might even be able to climb up out of the ruin and chase him down. The thought forced more strength into his legs as he moved to the southernmost point of the flying landmass. He threw on the Illusory Cloak mid-stride and pressed a small button on the collar.

Since it was an imperial relic, the device didn’t have the same near-magical abilities as normal relics. Imperial relics had to be manually activated and couldn’t be controlled with the mind alone like Empyreon relics. It was a major deficit considering the nature of some objects.

The path to the edge of the landmass was blessedly eventless. He had already planned an escape route when he had scouted out the Floating Mesa so nothing got in his way as he invisibly raced along. His slightly increased stamina helped him along as he didn’t stop sprinting the entire way.

When he arrived at one of the many vines snaking off the flying landmass, he paused for a moment to breathe. That moment was cut short as the chilling imagery of two glowing pinpricks in a sea of darkness came back to his head. He had to go. Now. He wouldn’t feel safe till after he dismounted the Floating Mesa.

Night had already fallen by the time he worked his way down the vines. His cloak did its job and nothing hunted him during the entire climb nor did anything chase him while he made his way away from the flying landmass. He walked further than he probably should’ve before he made camp. The idea that the being in the ruins might’ve followed him was more than enough reason to put up some distance before he stopped for the night.

Verlon camped out in an abandoned burrow that night. Before going to sleep, he took some notes on the encounter in the ruins and looked at the three items he managed to make off with. All three were rather interesting and gave off similar vibes as the other relics he had seen. The medal and liquid, however, had a very weak feeling compared to the bracelet.

Under the poor light of his small fire, he first inspected the medal. As far as he could tell, it was a simple medal depicting a fire bird. It looked to maybe be of a militaristic origin. He wasn’t a hundred percent sure since he didn’t know much about the Empyreon military. It was interesting enough, though he doubted it had much value outside of being a collector’s item. Even then, he might be able to find a buyer for the medal in the Sekorium.

The injector of liquid was far more interesting. The liquid almost seemed like a solid in the way it shifted with the consistency of sand, yet had the distinctive wet look of a liquid. It looked slightly like a midnight sky in that the liquid was almost entirely black with specks of white light.

He had never seen anything quite like the liquid. There was no indication of its uses either. The injector obviously pointed to the liquid being some kind of injection, though he had no idea if it was intended to benefit or harm. Maybe it was some kind of death liquid used in lethal injections? Or maybe it was some kind of musculatory enhancement to grant superior strength? There was no telling and he didn’t exactly want to experiment on himself.

The most interesting object was the hoop. It seemed to be some kind of device, though he had no idea how to activate it. He tried tapping on it and mentally ordering it to do something, but nothing worked. As far as he could tell, it was just an elaborate piece of metal. Maybe it was decorative just like the fiery bird medal? It could be a bracelet, though the rigid nature of the metal was an odd choice. Maybe that was the fashion back then. He had seen weirder fashion trends back in the empire.

And yet he got he feeling there was more to the item than that. He wouldn't be having such a strong reaction to otherwise. Maybe he was going about this all the wrong way. His boots couldn't be activated till he put them on either. Verlon slipped on the loop as if it were a bracelet. As soon as it got past his palm and onto his wrist, he felt several pricks. He froze for a second as he looked past the metal to see dozens if not hundreds of needles sticking out of the bracelet and into his wrist. The sight made him feel quite lightheaded as he tried not to pass out at the senation.