Raven’s dreams were a disorienting amalgamation of memories and subconscious representations that seemed to shift and meld from one to another. Places from her past, people she had run away from, moments she regretted. All of them fluidly passed through each other, leaving her with a pang of guilt in her stomach. The last thing she remembered was her mother’s stern voice saying: ‘You will do as you’re told or…”
Then her eyes shot open and she gasped for air. She felt as if she hadn’t breathed for a long while. Immediately her nostrils were filled with the disgusting stench of burnt flesh and she sat up coughing.
“Hey, she’s awake!” she heard Janette say.
She looked over to her left and found Janette sitting next to her on the ground and off in the distance she saw Arcaea and Kurai pulling teeth from the burnt urthog.
“What...what happened?” Her throat hurt as she spoke. She felt parched and dehydrated.
“I set the urthog on fire.” explained Janette.
“And it still refused to die!” Kurai shouted off in the distance.
“How long was I out?” asked Raven.
“A couple of hours.” said Janette.
“Everything hurts.”
“I know, sorry. I’m all out of arcanum so I can’t heal you.”
Raven brought her fingers up to touch her face and it was only then that she realized her whole face and most of her body was still covered in dried blood and partially closed wounds. But she did feel a little better than she did before she had fallen unconscious. She was beginning to swell up though so she suspected the next few days would be tough on her.
She attempted to stand up and felt a fresh surge of pain rock through her.
“Oh tork. This feels terrible. Oh gods, kill me now.”
“I can help with that.” said Kurai as she and Arcaea sauntered back with a hand full of charred teeth.
Raven couldn’t help but notice that Arcaea’s cleaver, which hung from a harness on her back, was completely blackened and ruined.
“This should be enough to prove we got the job done.” explained Arcaea.
“And then a week of down time at Keystone.” added Kurai.
“Yes, please. Can we get the tork outta here?” asked Raven.
“Arcaea thinks she found a way out earlier. We still have no idea what this structure is.” explained Janette.
“Some kind of bunker or something.” said Arcaea.
“I found a console.” added Kurai. “Managed to extract and decode a little bit of data.”
“Anything useful?” asked Raven.
“Not really. This place is Pre-Downfall I imagine...or at least fell during it. Decoded a report that said that the people here were…’touched’.”
“What does that mean?” asked Janette.
“No clue. But it seems they weren’t allowed into Infinitum because of it. Some kind of affliction I imagine.” explained Kurai.
“Well, I’d very much like to take a look at those reports once you’re done decoding the rest of them. But for now, lead the way. I’m ready to go back.” said Raven.
They made their way out of the grand chamber and into a wide corridor. With Kurai’s illuminorb device they were now able to get a closer look at their surroundings. The walls were not made of concrete or granite as was often the custom with modern palaces or mansions. Instead the walls here were made of a shimmering blue metallic material called corrite that had what looked like grooves that trailed along the length of the walls. Janette and Kurai both knew that these grooves used to be veins or powerlines that distributed arcanum throughout the whole facility.
Once they exited the corridor they emerged into another wide chamber but here the ceiling was much, much lower. Strewn about the chamber were benches and tables, some were still where they had probably been originally placed but most had been thrown up against the walls or used as barricades. The floor was littered with skeletons and mummified earthly remains. They numbered in the hundreds, if not close to a thousand. It was hard to tell from the faint glow emanating from Kurai’s illuminorb. Some of the remains were scattered about the floor while most were piled on top of each other. Standing there they could scarcely imagine what horrors that befell these people. Twisted shapes and hollow faces staring back at them. A long forgotten testament of the terror and immeasurable loss of the Downfall.
“That’s…” Janette began but words failed her.
“Tragic.” Arcaea finished for her.
“All these people.” said Janette, still struggling to find the words.
“It’s sometimes hard to comprehend the mind boggling amount of people that died during The Downfall. And then you see something like this.” said Raven.
It was then that Kurai started noticing the walls. There were scratch marks on them. Thousands of them. Some seemed to be random but a lot of them formed symbols and strange patterns. Looking at where the corpses lay she quickly guessed they were made by people who died here.
“We should get the tork out of here.” she said, still looking at the wall.
“Agreed.” said Raven, pointing at a cluster of more recently made corpses.
These were definitely no older than two years or so. Most of them had been torn apart, others crushed. Their skin practically mummified down here, which made it easy for them to spot the symbols. Glyphs and patterns, very much like the ones clawed into the walls, had been carved into their flesh. Whether it was done before or after their death the four girls were unsure.
“Alright, yeah, tork this. Arcaea, which way do we go?” asked Kurai.
“This way.” said Arcaea.
They gingerly stepped through the underground graveyard, careful to not disturb the ancient cadavers. They soon made it to the other end of the hall where they found a corridor. They snuck their way through the nearly collapsed hallway until they found themselves standing at an intersection.
“Where to next?” asked Kurai.
“I believe it’s straight forward.” said Arcaea.
“You mean you don’t know?” asked Janette.
“There’s fresh air coming from there, but this is as far as I have gone.” Arcaea explained.
Raven, while they were discussing where to go, felt something tuck on her consciousness. Almost as if a spectral hook had snagged her mind and was pulling her...to the left?
She turned and looked at a crumbled section of the corridors. A rubble of rocks piled around the bodily remains of a person. She furrowed her brow as she saw this and began walking towards it.
“Uh...Raven?” she heard Kurai ask. “You okay?”
Raven just kept walking until she reached the cave-in. There she stood looking down at the remains. It was the body of a female dval clad in a heavily damaged suit of armor. Its white and blue colors could barely be made out due to the dust that covered her. Which wasn’t peculiar in and off itself, however, it was clear to see that this person had not been dead for 400 years like all the rest. In fact, this person seemed to have died only a few years ago.
“That’s odd.” said Arcaea as the others caught up to her.
“Is it? Some treasure hunter came down here and died in a cave-in. Seems pretty cut and dry to me.” said Kurai.
Raven kneeled down and removed some of the rocks off of the body. Clutched in the corpse’s right hand was a metal octahedron made of hundreds of interconnected black alloy pieces. Its design seemed so incredibly intricate and its surface so clean and unweathered that it was almost as if it had been placed here after the fact. As if someone had planted it here.
“What’s that?” asked Janette.
“I don’t know.” said Raven hesitantly. “But...I felt almost drawn to it.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.” said Kurai.
Raven looked at the withered body in the rubble and spotted something in its other hand. She pulled out another object and held them up for all to see.
“It’s...a sword hilt.” said Arcaea.
“Where is the sword?” asked Kurai, the usual sarcasm in her voice resurfacing after a brief but welcome absence. “What’s the use of a hilt without a sword?”
Janette said nothing but there was a moment of recognition in her eyes.
Raven looked at the two artifacts for a moment before putting them into her bag.
“We can take a closer look at them later. They might be able to fetch a hefty price.”
Again, Janette said nothing but when Raven looked over at her, an almost entirely silent conversation took place that the other two completely missed.
The four of them walked down the corridor where they thought the exit might be. The quiet stillness of this underground crypt and the surrounding darkness filled them with dread. As they continued they finally caught sight of light.
“Daylight!” exclaimed Kurai and all four of them started jogging towards it.
They made their way through what looked like a receptionist area and out a front entrance that was heavily hidden by overgrown vines and foliage.
As they emerged out into the daylight their eyes were blinded for a moment. Once they adjusted they beheld the land they were so familiar with. An ocean of trees and jagged mountains off in the distance. Above them they saw the blue sky, clouds and floating landmasses. Some large, some small. A body of water drifted through the air, passing through some of the islands, drowning them in water and valuable minerals that would yield a bountiful harvest in the coming months. A flying metal ship appeared into view from one of the islands and then began making its way further north towards civilization.
Off in the distance they could see a wide mountain range and sitting on top of its peaks was a massive figure. A gargantuan entity whose body was blackened and almost charred and underneath it they could see purple cosmic energy crackling and escaping out of its back.. Much like the four girls it had a head, a torso and two legs but unlike them, however, it had four arms, each one holding on to a different peak. A tall smoke stack rose up into the air from it with lightnings of purple energy arcing from it. A Primordial of the old world stuck in a catatonic state, oblivious to the world around it. One of the creators of the world now reduced to a passive spectator unable to act or react to anything.
Beyond that they could see other landmasses hovering, mostly obscured by the atmosphere and sheer distance between them and the girls.
These were the lands of Old Okuza, or what remained of them after The Downfall. But they were more commonly known as The Frontier now.
“Let's find a lake and wash all of this drim off of us. I feel and smell like death.” said Raven.
The others nodded in silent agreement.
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