Chương 85: Chapter 161 - Final Preparations

Mirian spent two more cycles training with Rostal. The old dervish pushed her hard, but she demanded he push her harder. She built the death-corridor course in an abandoned part of the Palendurio canals to keep herself used to the hall. She also raised up three stone pillars with shape stone to train on. Near the end of that second cycle, Rostal was giving her a strange look.

"What?" she asked in Adamic.

"At first, I thought you were a creature of lightning. Now I think you also have fire in you. I must teach you the Last Breath Of The Phoenix." Mirian smiled at him.

"Very well." She could immediately see how it was dangerous. Just like with arcane magic, energy was not free; it had to come from somewhere. To gain the extra strength of the stance, the soul itself was the fuel. Like the form of the Dusk Waves, she could see her soul dancing as if in a storm, and the chaos of it made it hard to control once the fires of the Phoenix form started. But she also saw a pattern. The form involved drawing soul-energy pools into points, like a flame drawing oxygen into itself.

But those points were all near the surface, and the action felt a lot like drawing soul energy for a celestial spell. As the cycle closed, Mirian traded gold for smuggled myrvites to charge her soul repositories, then attempted drawing outside soul energy to fuel the dervish form. It was tricky, because she had to draw the soul energy right along the surface of her own soul, but not mix the energies lest they cause damage. But it worked.

When she asked Rostal if any dervishes had done anything like it, his brow furrowed.

"Perhaps. But if they did, it is lost to us. So much is lost to us. It sounds like more of what the necromancers were famous for." He tilted his head and looked at her.

"Not all that is lost deserves to be remembered." What she'd discovered would all be called 'necromancy' by the ignorant. But drawing strength from myrvite souls would help alleviate her exhaustion. None of their opinions would last long enough to matter. She spent the next cycle practicing rapid artifice and mapping out the locations of myrvites that would be on her journey to Frostland's Gate, as well as refining her wyvern-bone project with the artisans there.

It was that cycle she received a worrying message from Respected Jei, delivered by courier. She'd written it in Adamic. It was a simple enough message: There was no airship from Akana Praediar. Broadsheet from Alkazaria continues to report defeat of Dawn's Peace in Rambalda. That worried Mirian. Have their goals changed? Or just their tactics? Did Troytin learn something new that he seeks to exploit? Or did he sneak into Torrviol using the skiff like he used to do to catch me off guard?

Without information, it was all speculation. Wary of a trap, Mirian ditched her stolen spellbook and returned to Torrviol. She used divination to scour the forest for an abandoned airship and the town for anyone using illusions or bindings to change their appearance. Nothing. Which didn't alleviate her worry at all. I can't let it stop my plans. I'm almost there, Mirian thought.

She returned to the Labyrinth the next cycle, making minimal preparations in Torrviol to better simulate her planned timeline. This time, she made it past the room with two golems. Beyond them was another corridor. As she entered, the platforms began to move. At one junction, electricity periodically arced from rod to rod. She analyzed the movements, mentally mapped out her route, then ran, leaping from platform to platform.

When she approached the electric arcs, she had to leap back to the platform behind her, then forward again as soon as the arc went off. Then came another corridor, and another, and another, each with its own deadly challenges. Finally, soul repositories depleted, stamina exhausted, she stumbled into the next room. Two golems dropped down from the ceiling behind her, and a third in front. On instinct, she rushed forward, leaping and then kicking off a wall to get extra distance.

She didn't look back; it would just slow her down. There were two elevated pillars, and she kicked off between them, rapidly ascending, then leapt forward, and just in time. Behind her, she felt the air of the bladed arm of the smaller golem. One more leap brought her onto the platform with the forward golem. She dodged its first smash, but the hit caused the platform to wobble and she lost her footing. She scrambled for the far edge past it. She almost made it.

Stone spikes rained down from the ceiling, and one caught her in the leg. Mirian screamed, then toppled off the platform, dropping thirty feet to the floor below. The fall didn't kill her. Instead, electric traps on the floor turned on, and then there was darkness.

The next cycle, the 160th, she figured out the solution to the last room. When the golem slammed the platform, that somehow sent a signal to the spikes above. She had to slide under the golem, between its legs, while the spikes rained down. She made it to the final platform, then ran through the door. She looked around, expecting more golems, traps, or maybe a blade that descended from the ceiling. Instead, she froze. She was in a jungle. Is this the final room?

Except it was too small for that, but the plant life there seemed similar. Another feeling overwhelmed her: her connection to her mana. At last! she thought in relief. She walked forward, brushing aside a low hanging branch. There, in the center of the room, was a pedestal. The top of it was decagonal. On each side was a single, beautifully formed glyph. The basic forces of energy. Kinetic, heat, magnetism, electricity, gravity, sound, light, arcane, and soul. But what is the last glyph?

She had never seen it before. She heard the pleasant sound of birdsong. She looked up, and saw a black bird sitting on a branch, its wings covered in eyes. She looked at it, ready to fight, but it didn't seem hostile. The brush stirred, and a small lizard-like thing scurried by, unconcerned by her presence. Its scales resembled the fangs of a snake, but twisted together like braids. The bark of the trees seemed to slowly undulate. The insects flying around were wholly alien to her.

This was life, but not the kind found on the surface. Still, it wasn't actively attacking her, so she let them be. You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. She approached the pedestal, and experimentally channeled a trickle of mana into the glyph for heat energy. Not much happened. Did the room become slightly warmer? She channeled more. Then she was sure. Definitely warmer. So this is magnifying the effect of energy added to the system. Mirian looked around.

The lizard-thing wasn't happy. It had decided to go lie down in a pool in the shade. The bird-thing had its wings slightly parted. A cat-like creature was panting while lying in the shade. Adding light energy to the system would be similar to adding heat energy. But what opens the door? She could see it, through a thin veil of branches. There were no glyphs or runes around it to indicate what she was supposed to do. She tried adding kinetic energy next. A breeze began to waft through the room.

It felt a little cooler, though she guessed the actual temperature of the room hadn't changed. Staring at the glyphs, she couldn't think of how adding energy to the system would do anything except cause problems. Sound energy might cause an earthquake or just make a disruptive noise. Viridian talked about excessive noise agitating most animals and interfering with bird mating calls. Electricity—bolts of lightning, maybe? I don't see that helping.

Am I supposed to pick the energy type that doesn't screw with the wildlife? Mirian tried channeling into the magnetic energy glyph. As she did, the bird became distraught and started flying around erratically. What? Why? Puzzled, she tried another input. Maybe they need arcane energy. Plenty of things consume mana. She tried channeling into that glyph. She looked around, but didn't see any of the plants or animals reacting. Well, nothing bad is happening. Maybe it just needs more? She channeled more mana. Nothing.

She channeled some more. Nothing around the door had changed. Now she was curious. Is this instructional? Excess energy of any kind can be harmful—but not arcane? Is that why the Elder Gods created the arcane force? She continued to channel. Suddenly, there was a crackling sound, and the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. She felt the surge with her arcane sense, and turned to look towards it. Bursting from the soil in the room was— —a little geyser of purple and orange. Her mind raced with questions.

An eruption in miniature. So the leylines are going berserk because there's too much energy in the system? But what's the cause? Is it the nature of the leylines? How would arcane energy accumulate there? The Academy taught me ambient mana is mostly absorbed by plants and fungi, though, then incorporated into the auras of animals—but it's clearly also mediated by soul energy. How does ambient mana relate to the leylines? How does it connect to soul energy? And does Apophagorga have anything to do with it?

She stood there, lost in thought. I thought I understood how this stuff worked. And it's not like I know nothing—I've clearly figured out how to generate a great deal of auric mana. But on the macro scale… does anyone know how it works? Then she thought back to Viridian's class, the one where he'd obtained the Akanan mathematical spell engine and simulated climate. And he thinks the Labyrinth is key to that. She looked around. This is a model. Just like that spell engine, only magnitudes more complex.

I'll have to come back here when I have my Holy Pages spellbook. For now, I need to figure out how to open that door. Trees needed light to grow, and so, she decided, perhaps they would take up the excess energy in the system as they grew. At first, she thought it was working. New plants burst through the ground, while the trees grew in size. But as she suspected, the temperature increased, as did the breeze. Some of the leaves on the older plants began to turn a sickly brown.

There was that last glyph, the one she didn't know the function of. I doubt that's it. The solution isn't to add energy to the system. But how do I remove energy? It was a model, not an actual ecosystem. Perhaps there was a way to signal the removal of energy. Energy can, after all, be bound up and stored so it's not in the system. But how to signal that within the model? She looked at the glyphs. Despite the unfathomable knowledge of the Elder Gods, they had deigned to use the simplest form possible.

That gave her an idea. She opened up her spellbook and used a displacement glyph, pairing it with the heat energy glyph on the pedestal. As she channeled, she felt the temperature of the room dropping. She stopped, then moved to each of the other energy glyphs, removing the energy and bringing it below the baseline. The bird stopped freaking out. The lizard emerged from the pool. The trees lost their leaves as the light and temperature decreased.

She ignored the unknown glyph, hoping it wasn't a key part of the puzzle. Whatever glyph needed to displace the unknown form of, presumably, energy, didn't exist in her spellbook. Drawing down the arcane energy levels took the longest since she'd added so much. Glowing light surrounded the door. It opened. That's it? She walked through. The next room was the long one—the one that ended in the final Vault and the relicarium. Each route is a lesson.

The rooms start with ecology puzzles, and knowledge of myrvites and magichemicals, but then become about speed, agility, and endurance. But the last room is about energy and ecology again. Viridian would call it a disrupted equilibrium. She stepped into the long corridor. I won't be able to open the final door while being attacked by the whole forest. But why does the forest attack? Mirian began to walk, constantly checking her surroundings. Nothing.

She was almost to the door when one of the pieces of vegetation finally morphed into an abomination. Mirian watched it, and it watched her. Displacement of energy, she thought. She opened her spellbook and used rapid heat displacement to freeze the creature. Since it was soulless, it took little effort. She checked around. No swarming monsters. Of course. If we'd come in through the second route, we'd have understood. There were layers of lessons here, ones Mirian still wasn't sure she fully understood.

But the artificial forest was still, and the final door was before her. She opened it, just for the practice, and stepped in. The relicarium was still there, as were the strange relics. I'll be back for you, she thought, and left. The route back was the same one she was familiar with. From her earlier trips to the village, it seemed the Labyrinth shifted sometime on the morning of the 3rd. Two days to set up Torrviol and reach Frostland's Gate. In and out. And this route requires minimal mana.

I think I'm almost ready.

The next cycle, she continued her preparations. Mirian practiced different sections of her route, as well as added some old friends to her growing expedition. She got word from Torrviol that Troytin returned, arriving in the town by the large airship as if nothing had changed. Whatever he'd been up to, she couldn't tell. Ibrahim was still missing. Whatever he'd gone off to do, it was taking a great deal of time. At the end of each cycle, she had continued to return to her study of the void-hole.

By now, she had mapped the outlines of an object. It was, as she'd guessed, a four-dimensional object, residing in a four-dimensional space. To that end, the best way to describe the object was mathematically, but in her mind, she'd begun to think of it as the Soul Anchor; it had a solid core, and four protrusions that stuck out of it, keeping it immobile, like claws dug into the soul.

But she'd found that she could use the bindings of soul magic to pressure those protrusions so that they folded back into the central core. She didn't actually attempt to fold them all back in. That struck her as too dangerous a thing to do; after all, those protrusions were dug in for a reason. However, she calculated that, if they all folded back in, the device would resemble a rod, or perhaps the blade of a stiletto.

Its diameter at the thickest point in its narrowest dimension was about two centimeters across, as best she could tell, and perfectly circular. On the 162nd cycle, she pulled out a measuring stick and stood on her bed to examine the ceiling. Two centimeters in diameter, exactly. Looking through the hole, she thought, so that's what it was. But where did it come from? It would have to be a mystery for another time.

She focused on establishing the final timelines on the Cairnmouth and Palendurio sections of her route, making sure her allies could fulfill their roles with minimal intervention on her part. As the month came to a close, she finished her final preparations. It was finally time to kill a titan and assemble a spellbook that could persist across the time loops. Mirian steeled herself for the next cycle.