102 – The Trial of Solitude
“It won’t open to anywhere lower than the first floor,” Zel sighed.
“Hard way it is, then,” the veteran laughed, slowly but steadily rising to his feet. “I‘on’t look forward to clearin’ a fuckin’ dungeon, but what can ya do.”
He cast his gaze to each of them in turn, the levity in his face replaced by a grim determination. Stepping towards and through the gate he said, “See y’all on the other side.”
The Inquisitor followed after him without so much as a word, with Zel and Zef passing through last.
One moment, Zelsys felt the grasp of her lover’s hand around hers - the next, it was gone. A warm buzz had washed over her when they stepped into the Gate, she flickered in and out of consciousness, only to emerge at the other side, alone.
The pain of impact jolted her back to her senses. For the second time this day, she’d been stripped of her weapons and equipment, this time so thoroughly that even her shin-plates were gone. On the upside, she no longer felt a stinger stuck through her back and into her heart - there was only a dull pain to the new tissue that plugged the hole.
She found herself in a Fog Gate chamber identical to the one on the surface, spat out by a gate identical to the one she’d entered, its light flickering and dying moments after she woke. The door at the other side of the small, rectangular chamber was still shut; as it was, its halves formed a glyph that spanned the entire door, which already weakly glowed when she woke. It was a colossal, elaborate pattern that spanned two-thirds of the door’s surface, lacking a single core symbol; it resembled serpents or perhaps roots made up of interlocking sigils, entangling the door and one another.
Myriad thoughts and emotions swirling in her head, Zelsys stood to her feet and approached the door. The glow intensified with her approach, until it swung open to let her pass without the slightest sound just as she would’ve bumped into it.
Beyond it lay… A hallway. As tall and as wide as the door itself, every surface smooth, black stone, carved with a great many channels - some followed the length of the corridor, whilst others changed direction, but seemingly never at a sharp angle. There was also the reason for her ability to see in the utter absence of sunlight, these being immaculately carved prism-shaped lightgems that sat embedded in the stone walls, well out of reach.
At the end of the hallway, perhaps only a few dozen meters away, there was another door. Simply walking through the hallway, there was a palpable sense of tension. Zelsys felt lighter on her feet, what pain she still felt was numbed, there was this familiar invigoration, as if the very air down here was suffused with Fog. At her approach, this door’s glyph lit up too and it too opened, leading her to…
Another small, rectangular chamber, with another door at the other end. There was nothing here, but her gut told her there had to be something. Anything. Maybe in the walls?
It was in the walls. The left wall, right next to that other door, specifically. A small glyph with a nozzle in the center. As the two door glyphs had, it too seemed proximity activated, prompting the nozzle to sputter and spit ribbons of Fog that formed letters, words, and soon full sentences. It was an unfamiliar script, one she couldn’t read, yet her brief attempt at interpreting was apparently enough to make the Fog rearrange itself into readable, if archaic Ikesian.
How curious - the first worthy challengers in centuries,
at an inopportune time such as this.
Know that I will not be merciful, but I will be generous.
These halls are yours to plunder.
The words stuck around for barely long enough to read, their constituent Fog fading out in mere seconds. More Fog poured from the hole in the wall, and more words formed.
The Parasite’s grip is weak here, but our time is short.
Traverse my halls, purge the Parasite’s children.
Fear none, slay all, and take without remorse.
The beasts will do the same and far worse if you let them.
“Where are the others? And what of my weapons?” Zelsys questioned, expecting no reply. The stream of Fog sputtered, stopped, and resumed, writing out the response.
Your tools of butchery are in the chamber ahead,
you need but find them.
As for your companions,
they face their own trials.
You will find one another soon,
whether they survive or not.
The flow of Fog ceased and the glyph went dark, the door swinging open to reveal the chamber ahead. A long chamber with a door at the other end and two side paths to the right, the walls adorned with surreal, angular sculptures of puppet-like humanoids, their faces flat and bearing the same glyph that she’d seen next to the door.
When she at last decided to cross the precipice the door slammed shut behind her, the chamber sprawling out before her.
With naught but her own breath to break the silence, Zelsys could hear everything within the chamber and beyond. The click-clacking of an elaborate mechanism beneath the floor and behind the walls, the distant thumping of gigantic pistons, the skittering of chitin-plated feet to her right…
“Need a weapon first…” she thought, shutting out her instincts as she searched the chamber for something she could weaponize, anything. A pang of hope flashed in her mind at the sight of a nearby statue that had been broken apart, with a few of the pieces looking to be small enough for use as clubs.
Wrapping her fingers around what had been the statue’s forearm, she found that it was light - far too light, even more so than dry wood. Without any sharp edges, it would be a completely inefficient force multiplier. While she searched for any fragments that were sharp enough to use the sounds of locust-men grew louder, more frantic, their scuttling and chattering accompanied by horrid squelching and cracking.