TR: 12

Chapter Twelve: Like Clockwork

All was silent in the holding room. Kade startled himself awake, smacking his head on the low-lying ceiling, forgetting for a moment that he had been stowed away in a gnome’s junk cart. As it came back to him, he peered out of the cracks where door met frame and couldn’t see hide nor hair of anyone in the dim auto-lighting of the room.

Kade let himself out of the cart silently, closing the door behind him. The room was enclosed and smaller than a cren room; Kade wondered if all gnome rooms were of a similar size. In the room, Kade could make out sorted piles of boxes and other hodgepodge, all with their own designated labels. Scanning over them, it appeared they were mostly unclaimed goods, mixed in with a smattering of collections to be sorted and misfiled items waiting to be picked up by someone. The only sound in the room was a persistent buzzing, similar to what one would expect from halogen lighting, but the only light source came from the soft orange glow of the strange stones inset into alcoves in the wall or fastened to cages in the ceilings.

Kade walked up to one of the lights and examined it, curiously.

“Hmm. Wonder if they work on solid-state too. But where’re all the wires?”

Kade shrugged off the mystery of gnome power for the moment and proceeded out of the room. Kade proceeded through the processing room, a much larger open area with heaps and heaps of boxes and assorted junk lay in piles, partially sorted or not at all. Three large conveyors lay dead in their places, each leading to different zones designated by the signs above them. Kade wend his way around the junk as he made his way through the facility, following Ponoto’s instructions carefully. Eventually, he found the exit he was looking for, just where Ponoto had said it would be. Kade knocked twice, quietly, in case the guard on duty had rounds at that time. There was silence for several heart beats then a knock mimicked Kade’s from the other side. He opened the door and a small shape slipped into the room with him.

“Took you long enough! Acquisition’s been closed for over an hour now. What were you doing in that cart. Or do I want to know?” Ponoto huffed as he shook off what looked to be a night chill.

“Sorry, I fell asleep. Cramped spaces and all. Not much else to do.”

“Almost froze to death out there! Do you have any idea how cold it gets way down here at night?”

Kade looked up, imagining the surface far above them. “Just how far down…”

“It doesn’t matter right now. Let’s get to the archives.”

Kade followed Ponoto as they made their way through different areas, each different than the last. Acquisition was much larger than Kade had suspected; in addition to a multitude of other holding rooms and offices, there was a whole supply depot with rows and rows of dormant conveyors, each channeling from different parts of the facility. By the look of it, gnomes were type A to the extreme, sorting things down to the shape and material. It was an impressive sight, to say the least. Ponoto led him up a stone staircase and they entered a hall which had many more adjoining halls at right angles to it, each lined with towering shelves filled with books. Kade stopped mid-aisle, dumbfounded by the volume of records before them.

“How in Rynn are we going to find this thing in all of that?”

Ponoto didn’t seem deterred and continued walking, scanning the plaques at the end of each shelving unit. “Gnomes are meticulous record keepers. It will be filed not only to the date but to the letter and design. If we know what we are looking for–which we should, if you are telling the truth–then it shouldn’t be too hard to locate your sacred object.”

Kade frowned. “It’s not… Well, that’s great and all, but I don’t even know what to call it, so how would they?”

Ponoto stopped at the end of a shelf and put his hands on his hips, motioning to the plaque before them. “We could start here, for one.”

Kade walked up to the plaque but didn’t understand the inscription on it. Was that gnomish? Was there even a gnomish? Kade hadn’t even thought that far.

“What’s it say?” He asked.

“Mysterious artifacts.”

There was a smug confidence in the gnome’s voice, as if they had already found Kade’s belonging.

“You’re kidding me.”

***

Three hours later, they had finally tracked down the ledger containing the entry they were looking for. As Ponoto rifled through the ledger (it too, like all the others, was in gnomish which Ponoto had indeed confirmed was a legitimate language), Kade stared into another of the glowing stones, one of many illuminating the halls. After a protracted silence, Ponoto did a double-take at the boy to see him gazing off at the strange stone.

“Ah, reminiscing, are we?”

Kade stumbled out of his thought-spell. “Huh?”

“Just a play on words, don’t mind me. Those are memory stones, in case you were wondering.”

“What do they do?”

“They remember, among other things. They also serve as the only light source underground here. Someone figured out long ago that the crystal lattice of the stones amplifies light quite effectively, so they got the techs to attach some kind of device to the bottom of them. Pretty cool, but it would be nice if they got rid of that horrible sound. It’s all white noise to most gnomes, but I can’t bloody well stand it. Drives a gnome to dark places, if you know what I mean.”

Kade stared at the stone with newfound wonder. “So it runs on electricity then?”

Ponoto laughed as he thumbed through the pages of the book. “What? Do you think we are barbarians? Gnomes understand physik, Kade. We just have our own means of generating power, however crude to you humans.”

Kade didn’t press the matter further. “So why ‘memory stones’?”

Ponoto didn’t answer, lost in focus as he scanned through the lines with the tip of his finger.

Kade glared at the gnome. He hated being ignored. He cleared his throat overtly.

“Hmm? What now? Oh, that.” Ponoto waved his hand dismissively. “I’m not sure how the exact mechanism works, as I’m no geologist, but something about the strata of the rock layers being very susceptible to energy, light and sound and all that. Each layer ‘records’ what it experiences, kind of like a snapshot in time. If you have the right equipment, you can go back and trace events from it, kind of like what you humans call ‘downloading.’ We use it is a kind of surveillance system, if you will.”

Kade frowned at the stone as he considered the implications. “That doesn’t make any sense. Wouldn’t it just be constantly recording then, since there’s always light and sound around it? There’d be an impossible amount of data to sift through…”

Ponoto grumbled. “Like I said, I’m no geologist, so I can’t fine-tune the argument for you. I knew a civil engineer once, and I remember him talking about ‘recursive sedimentation’ or something like that. Maybe you should look it up on that device you have there.”

“Recursive sedimentation… I wonder, does that mean… If each layer were an atom thick, and it acted like a screen…”

Kade ran some basic math in his head. “That could mean these things could record billions of moments, potentially quadrillions or more. That’s not much given the speed of light and refresh rates, but you could get, maybe…a couple minutes of footage. How is that helpful for surveillance though? You’d practically have to catch a crime in the process.”

Ponoto was visibly getting more perturbed by the moment with the questioning. “This would be true, if the stones recorded everything. They don’t, only major changes in environment. That’s why they’re useful. Otherwise, they’d just be fancy light bulbs.”

Suddenly, Kade had a new appreciation for the stones, though he barely knew how they worked, if at all. It was this fascination with technology and the inner-workings of the world that had led him to building mechs and the larger world of engineering which, one day, he aspired to be a part of.

“That makes so much sense now. If that’s the case, the potential to record becomes so much higher. You could, in theory, memorize…”

“Eight-sixty-nine dash Q!” Ponoto exclaimed.

Kade cocked his head at the gnome. “Well, I was going to say a number a lot bigger than that, but I guess that’s a start. Though Q isn’t a number…”

“No, don’t you see: I’ve found your item! Here, catalogued as Eight-sixty-nine dash Q. The entry says, Arcane metallic object, likely First Era, potentially a tool or (broken) portion of a cren weapon; Elvish in design though the filigree and metal-working around the hilt suggest something else, possibly dwarven. Source unknown, though it appears to be hand-forged. The centerpiece is a large red gemstone; instrumentation tests reveal mineral composition to be complex, though not brittle enough to be of a corundum ore.”

Ponoto continued to read in silence then frowned at the entry. “This is strange, here: Archiver’s note: a strange effect is felt upon gazing into the stone inset in the center, like a vertigo combined with hallucinations of (past?) events. It is unclear if this is user bias or an inherent property of the stone. Further testing is needed.”

Ponoto closed the ledger, casting Kade a suspicious look. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about this, would you?”

Ever the actor, Kade showed no sign of faltering. “I can’t say I recall that, no. I mean, it was really shiny. Maybe he reflected the light wrong and got those little spots that dance in your vision…”

Ponoto didn’t seem to buy it so Kade tried to divert the conversation.

“So where would they do this testing then? This place doesn’t seem to be the type of place to have a lab.”

Ponoto eyed the youth for a moment then returned the ledger to its place on the shelf. “Indeed. My best guess is it has gone to Antiquities, given that it has been deemed of the First Era. From there, it can be assessed by the Chronicler to deem its validity and worth.”

Kade sighed. “I’m guessing this means I’m going back in that cart again…”

Ponoto shook his head. “The Archives are public so they are open all the time, even at this hour. But we can’t just gallivant in there; the sight of a cren would sound the alarm instantly, if the old man survived the ensuing heart attack, that is.”

“So what do we do? Am I sitting this one out?”

“No, I need you to identify this object. Everything is tagged and coded once it’s been processed so I can’t leave without setting off the sensors. We’ll have to both be in the vaults to be sure we’ve found what we’re looking for then I’ll get you to bypass security by leaving via the roof access. They don’t have scanners up there as it’s for maintenance personnel only. They never considered…monkey business to be something worth safeguarding against.”

Kade frowned. “Roof access? Scanners? This is starting to sound more and more like a heist. Besides, aren’t we underground? How can anything have a ‘roof’?”

Ponoto smiled. “You have no idea how big the Archives are, do you?”

Kade gave the gnome a questioning look.

Ponoto continued. “Nonetheless, I can’t perform the egress on my own; security needs to see me come and leave unperturbed, lest we draw attention to our plan. They won’t know about you; let’s keep it that way.”

Kade nodded as he considered the proposal. “But that still leaves us with how to get in in the first place.”

Ponoto raised a finger. “Not an issue. There are access tunnels that run under the Archives and several other adjoining facilities, used mainly as a fire escape. No one ever goes down there except in emergencies. You can use it to get in but it’s on the grid so no leaving with borrowed goods, if you catch my drift. It’s only up from there, I’m afraid.”

“Tunnels. Got it. So, when do we begin?”

Ponoto reached into his pocket and pulled out a slip of folded paper. “Here, you’re going to need this.”

“What’s this? A map? How big is this place?”

“Big enough that they needed to make a map, apparently.”

Ponoto pulled out a marker and began making marks on the map. “We’ll meet here. This is Antiquities. There’s a database server at the entrance to every wing. That’s where we can begin to look to see if your item has been catalogued. With luck, it shouldn’t take too much work to find it.”

“Seems easy enough.”

“That’s the spirit. Let’s go then.”

Kade made towards the nearest exit and bumped into Ponoto as he made for the other way.

“Where are you going?” He snapped, rubbing his face in irritation.

“That’s the exit. Shouldn’t we…”

“We shouldn’t go anywhere like this. You need to get your arse back in that cart.”

Kade’s shoulders slumped. “I thought you said no more cart.”

“I said you wouldn’t need it, meaning you can use the access tunnels to get into Archives. But you still need to get to the access door, which is right in the middle of a public space. If you have any better ideas, I’m all ears.”

Kade sighed. “Looks like I’m going back in the cart.”

***

As it turned out, the halls of the town weren’t very public at all, considering nearly all of the gnomes had gone to bed. Kade heard Ponoto greet a few passersby, one of which looked to be a janitor by his uniform. Beyond that, Kade couldn’t make out much detail in his very limiting crack of light between the cart’s doors. Luckily, it didn’t take them long before they stopped. There was a long pause of silence and then came Ponoto’s knock, as instructed. Kade slid the doors open slightly and peeked his head out, gathering his surroundings. They had come to a large metal door, big enough almost for an adult cren, next to a staircase leading upwards into darkness.

“Where are we?” Kade asked.

“Just outside the public market. Doesn’t look like much right now but, trust me, it’s something worth seeing during the day.”

Kade looked around them. “Not sure how you can tell the difference down here…”

Ponoto rolled his eyes. “Surface-dwellers: always think they know best.”

Ponoto ushered Kade out of the cart and produced a key ring from his pocket. Kade had never seen so many keys one on ring in his life. In fact, he hadn’t seen keys outside of museums. Everything was cardlock or biosignature, pretty much everywhere.

“You must have keys to every gnome’s house on that thing.” Kade mused.

Ponoto began fumbling through the set as he searched for a specific key.

“Pretty much.”

“Come to think of it, how do you have a key for the emergency tunnels? I thought you were a musician?”

Ponoto smiled as if it at some private joke. “Music a musician makes yet notes shall never bind him; in such regard thy name decrees a grav doth never find him.”

Kade raised an eyebrow. “That sounds like poetry. I don’t do poetry.”

Ponoto shook his head, a look of admonition. “Sarajeven. Only one of the greatest gnome poets of his day. Don’t you know your classics? Ah, forget it. The point is, a man can do many things that aren’t a vocation. By trade, I too am many things. As such, you get to know many people. And obtain many keys.”

Kade thought the logic fair. “Ah, I see.”

Ponoto stuck the key into the door and the latch clicked open. He pulled the door open, revealing a lit passageway that seemed to trail off for some time before it doglegged out of sight. Kade could make out many doors along its length, all seemingly identical to the last. The map in his pocket suddenly began to feel heavier. As if sensing his apprehension, Ponoto placed a hand on his hip and gave Kade a near supercilious look.

“Not getting cold feet now, are we?”

“Huh? No, it’s not that. Just reminded me of the tunnels coming in. Everything is a maze down here.”

“Just follow my instructions and you’ll be fine.”

Kade nodded and proceeded down the stairs into the access tunnel. At bottom, he turned back and gave Ponoto a forlorn stare. Something in the gnome’s eyes then– Kade couldn’t tell if it was the shadows playing on them–seemed almost…sinister. It was a stupid thought, really, to fear a gnome. And the man had helped him get this far, however far that was. It was just that Kade found himself hoping for some kind of consolation–a word of warmth or a gesture of good faith perhaps–and none came. Ponoto merely nodded and said, “See you on the other side.”

The door closed and that was that. Kade stood silent in the halls-in-miniature, illuminated in the harsh halogens of the access tunnels, an interloper in more ways than one.

For the thousandth time that he could recall, Kade sighed and made his way down the tunnels in search of a door no different than the rest, hoping his map–and his math–wouldn’t fail him.

***

The gates of Nadek M’Nar closed behind Brian and a mix of feelings overtook him in that moment. There was freedom, in the sense that he was back on the other side of the wall that had bore him, but there was also a sense of displacement; displacement in the sense that the world before him could take him anywhere and the choices seemed daunting. In a way, it was like agoraphobia–fear of the wide open–though Brian wasn’t aware of any such phobias. The monks had been kind to him and treated him as consummate hosts would. His clothes, now laundered and pressed, hung freshly off his frame, smelling of bergamot and some other herb he couldn’t place. But like all things the monks did, it was subtle and by no means oppressive. Theirs was a craft honed over centuries; yet, whereas many monks took to beer or wine making as a form of devotion, this abbey had devoted themselves to protecting a sacred form–these predecessors. The thought terrified Brian: aliens. Could it actually be? If it wasn’t that, Brian couldn’t piece out the alternatives. Some evolutionary branch that diverged and went unaccounted for? That was hardly any more plausible. But there had to be an explanation. Perhaps it was all a millennia-long ruse. It wouldn’t be the first time cren had pulled something like that, to be sure.

But that was a battle for another day.

***

Fifteen minutes or so later, Brian found himself once more at the forest’s edge. the monastery loomed high above him, partially obscured by the craggy cliffs which supported it and the surrounding evergreens. Even then, the majestic spires fought to not be forgotten, their ivory facades glinting in the mid-day sun. Someone could have made a fortune painting that very moment, Brian thought. He turned back to the forest before him, a different region than before as he had taken one of the back roads of the monastery at brother Ennious’s behest. Apparently, what he was looking for could be reached quickest by the southern pass, though he still didn’t know what he was looking for.

At that, Brian reached into his shorts pocket and pulled out the flat disc that Ennious had given him. Looking it over in detail for the first time, Brian realized that it was actually made of some kind of rock/metal hybrid. The outer layer appeared to have swathes of porous rock across its surface, revealing a lustrous blue-black metal underneath through its many lacerations and fissures. Brian thought he recognized seeing the pattern somewhere previously but couldn’t place it. He hefted the disc in his hand, testing its weight. Heavy, like iron.

“So what am I supposed to do with this? Plant it and grow a beanstalk?”

He looked around him but found no inspiration from the surrounding woods. He held up the piece in front of him, slowly panning it across the scene before him.

“Magic stone, hear me now! Show me thy sacred path unto which I must walk…whoa!” Brian stopped mid-jest as the object exerted a force against his hand.

He moved the disc back to the place where he had felt the motion and he confirmed his suspicion as the disc aligned with some kind of field, pulling ever so slightly at the object which he grasped.

He moved it away from the field alignment again and then back into it, once twice, testing the discovery. There was no question about it: there was something pulling at the disc.

He removed it from the line of attraction and examined it once more, turning it around in his hand.

“Is this some kind of…magnet? Is that what I’m supposed to do? Let it just…take me to the other pole? Huh!”

He shrugged and held up the disc once more, finding the field. He began to walk forward, following the trajectory of the force which pulled at the strange stone.

***

It wasn’t twenty minutes later that Brian found himself in another strange part of the deepwoods, the pulling at the disc having multiplied in strength. It felt to Brian as if his sister had him by the hand, pulling him along as she did when they went shopping at the Skymall Deluxx! The thought of her made his stomach tighten; he missed her so much.

As his mind wandered, he completely missed the large root jutting out of the ground in front of him and he caught his foot in it, doing a face plant on the forest floor. He spat out a mouthful of dead leaves and dirt and watched as the disc rolled several blades ahead of him. The disc rolled to a stop but it wasn’t long before it began sliding along the ground, drawn in by the increasing powerful force of whatever called to it. Brian jumped to his feet and ran at the object but the force propelled it ahead and his hands came up with nothing but air. He chased after it, hopping over a series of roots and deadfalls that barred his path, the disc tumbling along over the increasingly uneven ground. He leapt for the disc and, as if it had a mind of its own, it shot into the air, soaring past his grasp and Brian watched as it sailed toward a monstrous rock structure that loomed high over him. Brian couldn’t believe that he had missed such a thing; a humongous rock, perhaps the size of a space port, sat embedded in the earth before him. Roots and shrubbery had nearly engulfed it over the years; now it was more of a cacophony of rock and wood, as if the forest was trying to purge itself of a tumour.

“Holy heaping hell! What is this?” Brian exclaimed.

He shielded his eyes from the sun as he gawked up a the monstrosity, attempting to take in the whole thing. This proved impossible given the breadth of the mass. Brian guessed that the object could be seen from suborbital it was so huge. He had never heard of anything quite like it.

Brian walked up to the base of the entanglement and stared up at a craggy rock face bound up by innumerable roots and vine-like structures. Perfect foot and handholds. He grabbed a large root and tested his weight against it. It didn’t budge whatsoever. He hoisted himself up and up, easily finding notches and grooves with which to anchor himself. Around four-or-so stories up, the mass began to round off and Brian pulled himself up into a groove that made something of a ledge. At front the rock face opposing him seemed different than the lower, this one with large fissures rend across it, revealing a lustrous bluey-black metal underneath. About an arm’s width up, Brian could make out the disc which had relieved itself of his grasp. Now embedded into the rock face there, it was as if it had never left; enmeshed in the structure since the beginning of time. Brian ran a hand gently over the rock face, admiring the otherworldly quality of its presence. His hand slid over the embedded disc and he wrapped his fingers around it, pulled. It did not budge a pinch.

Brian harrumphed and stared at the thing. Was it some kind of magnetic attraction after all? He had never heard of a small magnet so strong. In his pondering, he noticed something strange about the placement of the disc. It appeared to be partially obscuring an indentation, as if it had missed its mark.  He grabbed it with both hands and, with all his might, he attempted to shift it over. After several seconds of no avail and much grunting, the sound of rock slipping against rock finally emerged. Slowly, the disc shifted, pinch by pinch, until it snapped steadfastly in place in the indentation. There was a low rumble from somewhere nearby. It sounded as if it was coming from within the mountain itself. Within? Weren’t mountains solid?

Suddenly, the ledge began to quake and Brian backed away apprehensively. The rock wall shifted and Brian watched in awe as the section of the rock face surrounding the disc shattered into thousands of pieces. Brian gasped and jumped away, nearly throwing himself off the ledge. Somehow, a passageway had revealed itself. The mountain wasn’t so solid after all.

Brian stepped gingerly over the rubble as he pawed his way toward the opening. A glint caught his eye from below and he made out the edge of a familiar shape half-buried. He pushed aside some debris and found the disc, now emancipated, waiting for him. He retrieved it and considered it thoughtfully as he turned it over  in his hand.

“How did the monks ever end up with you?”

He exchanged glances between it and the passage.

“Huh. It’s almost as if they new. Who’d a thunk? Better save you for later.”

He pocketed the disc and entered through the fractured hole.

***

The air grew moist and warm the further in he went. Luckily, the monks had been able to help him charge his device, providing him with light again. Well, that room had, rather. Brian recalled it all too clearly: back on the platform surrounding the nape of the huge, esoteric figure traversing the entire complex, Brian hadn’t even realized what had transpired. Brother Ennious had pointed it out to him, just as they were leaving:

***

“It’s amazing isn’t it?” He said as he shared Brian’s gaze at the statue. “I’ve been coming here for decades and the view never grows tiresome.”

“I didn’t think monks ever got tired, given how much you accomplish.”

Brother Ennious chuckled softly. “Oh, we are human, that much you can be sure. But this lot…they are so beyond anything we could possibly imagine. Even to be in their presence is…energizing.”

“What do you mean? Like, inspiring?”

Ennious turned to Brian and motioned at his wrist. “Literally, actually. Look at your device, Brian.”

Brian glanced down at his watch and gasped. The battery life was at 100%. Somehow, the microglo cell had been completely replenished. There was no technology that Brian had ever heard of, inductor or otherwise, that could charge a Glo device that quickly.

“I don’t understand…How is this possible? Where did the energy come from?”

Ennious motioned around them. “Everywhere. The statue there, the plates beneath your feet, the very particles in the air–all of it is part of some vastly complex system we cannot comprehend. Just one of many miracles that happens daily at Nadek M’Narr. In fact, your convalescence was one such miracle.”

Brian raised an eyebrow at the monk. “What are you talking about?”

“It wasn’t our healers that were able to bring you back from the teetering edge so quickly. No, such injuries would have taken weeks of treatment and critical care. If we could have saved you at all, considering how broken you were when we found you there at the gate.”

“If not you, then who?” Brian asked.

Ennious smiled. “Not who but what. Nadek M’Narr.” Ennious panned a hand around them.

Brian looked around the monastery, confused. “I’m not sure I’m following. Are you trying to say…that the monastery healed me?”

Ennious nodded. “Exactly that. There is a room deep in the Old Core–not too far from this location–where we triage our injured. We call it the Sanctum Restorium. The room is imbued with a different kind of power than the others of its kind. We are as of yet unsure of whether or not it is the workings of the world but we do know some of the potential it holds. One such potential is for healing.”

“So you…what: just drop off your nearly-dead and they come back to life? I’m supposed to believe that?”

“No, not quite like that. First, you must be deemed elect. The Sanctum will not just heal any old passerby.”

Brian shook his head. “Wait, wait, wait. Are you trying to tell me…the room speaks to you? Do you know how absurd that sounds?”

Ennious chuckled. “Of course, but no less absurd than hearing its murmuring to begin with, I assure you. But they are not really voices, as it were. At least, not in the sense that you or I would think of them.”

“Are they…them?”

Brian motioned to the statue.

“The Predecessors? I cannot say. It is possible. All that we know is how to discern some of their patterns. They are almost like…vibrations in a way. It is part of our conditioning as initiates to study the words. And it is a study, I can attest to that.”

The whole thing made Brian’s head spin.

Back on the battlements, the two walked side-by-side in the sunlight, the glowing white stones basking in the warmth of the mid-day star.

“So…why did it choose me, then? How do you know who it will heal and who it will not?” Brian asked the monk.

Ennious smiled. “Oh, that it is an easy one, Brian. The Sanctum heals those who walk the path.”

“What path? Last path I walked on I didn’t get too far, remember?”

“No, you do not lie. But your path of Truth has only begun.”

Brian sighed. “How can anyone possible know that?”

“Indeed, no one can. But it does.”

Brian followed the monk’s gaze as it fell on the monastery before them, a newfound fear and respect now radiating off its walls.

***

Brian’s thoughts trailed off as the memory faded. He ducked under a shelving overhang, nearly taking out his knee on a nearby stalagmite. Who were the predecessors? Better yet, what where they? Rynnians had yet to discover other life in the universe but it was indeed absurd to think they were alone. Yet, current scientific estimates had set gruelling limits on interstellar travel, let alone extragalactic, and nearly all of the galaxy had been mapped down to the star, with swathes of biodata for anything even remotely amenable to habitation. In other words: if there were aliens among them, they’d know by now. Which meant either the predecessors hailed from Rynn or…they had some vastly superior technology that allowed them to transcend physik as they knew it.

In his imagineering, Brian nearly stumbled into open space. Hollering, he drew himself back and shone his light over the vast gaping hole that had suddenly come out of nowhere. He skimmed the light around the room to discover that the only way through was down. Oddly enough, a thick swathe of mottled moss covered the ground and appeared to carry on down into the pit. Brian leaned over and shone the light down though he was only able to ascertain a small field of visibility before the light attenuated into nothing. Judging from the small glimpse he could manage, the bottom was nowhere in sight and there didn’t appear  to be any handholds to help him on his way down. Unless…

Brian squatted down and took up a handful of the moss on the ground. Or rather, he tried to. The stuff didn’t move against his pull, as if it were glued to the earth. But that was a far cry from assuming that it would bear his entire body weight. Brian stood up.

Brian held up his device and activated the audio recorder with his voice.

“Scientific experiment number…three thousand and forty three: attempting to descend into pit of darkness, unknown depth, using…strange moss as sole means of anchoring. If I don’t make it down, Beryl, you take good care of Moo and make sure she doesn’t take over my bed when I’m gone. Don’t overfeed the fish….and eat your damn vegetables. Auntie, you’re the best, look after big sis. Know that I’ll be thinking of you, always. Love you guys.”

Brian stopped the recorder and thought for a moment before punching it on again. “Oh, and those holos under my bed…those aren’t mine. Brav gave them to me as a joke. Never watched any of ’em.”

Recording stopped, Brian flashed his light over the edge one more time and swallowed.

“Never thought this would be the way I’d go, but I guess we don’t get to choose, do we?”

He squatted down near the edge and swung his legs over, rotating around so that his chest was pressed against the thick moss. The stuff tickled his face as he moved against it, causing him to crane his neck to keep his head clear of its invasive touch. As he let the last of his weight slide over the edge he gripped fiercely to the moss and gasped in relief as the stuff held his weight. Slowly, he manoeuvred himself down into the depth of the pit with but the muted reflection of the light from his device as it danced around the room with every jerky movement of his arm.

After several minutes Brian stopped climbing and looked up, the opening far, far above him. Looking down, only blackness greeted him.

“What on Rynn am I thinking? Really, Brian? A monk in the woods gives you a magickal rock that opens up a mound of rubbish with a pit in the center and you think that’s where you’ll find answers about gnomes? Gnomes? By the creator, this is all ridiculous. Kade, I’m sorry buddy. You’re going to have to figure this one out on your own.”

Brian began to pull himself back up on the moss when he felt something brush his arm. Needing both hands on the moss to hold himself in place, Brian tilted his wrist inward to focus the light on his forearm. To his horror, a creature somewhere between a slug and a centipede slowly slimed its way across his skin. As his eyes adjusted, he realized there were actually many of them covering his arms and he gasped. Movement against the skin on the back of his neck made him jump and, reflexively he reached up to pull the thing off, in the process losing his grip for a moment.

He screamed and fell a blade but managed to grab a hold of the moss once more. The slithering creatures were not shaken loose and continued to crawl over him, causing a cascade of goosebumps all over his skin.

“Sick, sick sick!” He chanted and began to attempt to climb up once more.

It wasn’t three movements later than one of the things made its way onto his face, partially obscuring his vision. He could feel its myriad little legs squirming against his eyelid and he screamed in disgust. He shook his head violently but that only served to dislodge his grip once more. He snapped his hands back at the moss but this time only came up with air.

Brian screamed as he felt himself falling into the darkness that he had brought upon himself.

***

“Finally!” Kade exclaimed as he came to the door marked on his map.

Had he known that the fire escape tunnels were so extensive, he probably would have suggested another route to Ponoto. The map certainly didn’t do the area any justice; what looked to be merely a few connected halls with a handful of doors amounted to bouts of hallway, the lengths of which were lined with identical doors. Kade couldn’t be sure how many he had passed but he had lost count long ago. Yet, as the gnome had said would be the case, the door had been marked for him to see. This gave Kade a sense of relief as this meant Ponoto had made it to the Archives and that the door should have been open. Kade made his way down the tunnel and stopped short of the door, pulling out his map to confirm his position. Content that he was where he was supposed to be, Kade put away the map and ever so gently put weight on the handle. The door did not resist and Kade sighed internally, thankful to finally be out of the tunnels. The door creaked open and Kade could see a soft light on the other side. Halfway open there was a crashing sound on the other side, like glass shattering and Kade gasped, slamming the door shut. His heart raced, as did his mind as he found himself caught trying to figure out what had happened and whether or not he should run. Logic stole over him and he decided to wait and listen. Pressing his ear against the door, there didn’t appear to be any sounds coming from the other side. He waited and waited and after what he judged to be ten minutes or so, Kade attempted the door once more.

Kade poked his head through and took in the area. Dumbstruck by the size of the place, Kade momentarily forgot himself and walked uninhibited into the Archives, gawking at the vaulting ceiling above him. Hewn right into the bedrock itself, the room that was the Archives was by far the highest point in the city that Kade seen. It was if the gnomes had attempted to tunnel back to the surface but stopped short when merely a few shovelfuls away. Gemstones and minerals glittered all over the surface of the uneven facets of rock, giving the effect that the ceiling was made of prismatic light. It was absolutely stunning.

A crunching sound from beneath stole Kade’s attention away and he glanced down to find an overturned stand and a shattered vase, red liquid having spilled all over the stone floor, as well as having gotten onto Kade’s shoes and pant legs. He stepped back, leaving red footprints in his trail. Was it some kind of nutrient water? Kade shuffled his feet back and forth, attempting to get off what he could. After a fruitless half-minute or so, Kade made his way into the Archives, following the directions that Ponoto had marked on his map. As he walked between the towering marble columns holding up the ceiling, Kade gawked at his surroundings. Ponoto hadn’t been kidding about the size of the place; as far as Kade could see, there were rows upon rows of shelves lining the floor he was on, and that was only one of several that he could make out. Spiral staircases made of finely-formed stone interconnected the different levels and, like every other structure in the place, they too appeared to have been chiselled straight out of the room itself, as if it all belonged to one great architecture. Kade entered a new area demarcated by a sweeping stone arch and he could make out the faint blinking light on a strange-looking console in the center of the room–the object he was looking for. He approached the console and noted its anachronism; the thing looked like something one would find in a museum under Second Era artifacts. With the system of gears inset and visible through the glass plate on the plinth on which it sat, as well as the analog slots for hard-copy discware, it could hardly be called a computer by any means. Kade reached into his pocket and pulled out a gold-plated chip that fit in his palm–as bulky a contraption that he had ever seen. According to the gnome, it was a copy of the data they had pulled from Records and would direct him to his object’s location. Ponoto had the other and, if all went well on his end, he would do the same and the two of them would meet up in the same location–the location where his stolen talisman should be. In theory.

Kade inserted the disc and the light merely blinked at him. A moment passed and the screen remained dark. Kade feared he had done something wrong but then the monitor flashed to life with a series of green scrolling text, most of which was gnomish. As the machine interpreted his card, Kade scanned around him to make sure he hadn’t been spotted. The Archives were as deserted as a graveyard at night. Kade began to wonder why Ponoto had even taken precautions to begin with. Were there actually security patrols? As his mind wandered, the machine chimed and Kade saw a map displayed before him. On one end was his location and on the other, connected with a dashed line, was his destination. Kade searched for a holo-port through which he could upload the image to his device but there was nothing nearly so sophisticated on it. It didn’t even appear to have a digital printer, despite how archaic that was. As Kade continued to look over the machine for anything that could help him, there was a sudden flickering of the lights around him and everything in the Archives went dark and silent for a moment. Several seconds passed and the lights went back on. The console had reset and the image was gone. Kade cursed and sighed aloud. He frowned up at the rows of memory stones lining the room, casting their ubiquitous orange glow over the sterile office furniture in the room. Gnome technology left a lot to be desired.

***

As Kade stepped into the Foreign Relics wing, he was met with silence. Down the long corridor, glass glinted in the orange light along either side, obscuring the shelves upon shelves of catalogued objects held within. Half way down the aisle (which was still considerable given how long they were), Kade could make out a pile of shattered glass at the base of one of the shelving units. There was no sign of Ponoto. The tenor of the room was ominous, as if some heavy nothing hung in the air, waiting to become something.  He tiptoed toward the mess and found a small hole smashed in the glass partway up. Where an object should have been was an empty rack. A rack just about large enough to hold a dagger. Or a magickal talisman. Kade swallowed and glanced around nervously. As he did, he made out a strange shape at the far end of the aisle, one he had missed previously. Cautiously, he approached the shape and found that he was looking at two small legs sticking out from the end of the unit. And they were just about the right size for a gnome’s. Fearing the worst had happened to Ponoto, Kade rushed around the corner and gasped as he was met with a grisly sight: an old gnome sat hunkered against the base of the unit, smothered in his own blood. He had been stabbed multiple times in the chest and nearly gutted, his intestines half-spilling out into his lap. A pool of blood had seeped into the stone around him, telling Kade this was a recent kill. Despite the corpse being mutilated to the point of being indiscernible, Kade could tell it was not Ponoto. Kade couldn’t be sure in that moment if that was a relief or a concern.

“You there! Stop right where you are!” came a gruff voice not far off.

Kade swiveled toward the sound, his heart racing. Two stout gnomes in uniform approached out of the shadows, brandishing long truncheons. So there were security guards after all. Kade threw up his hands and backed away until he butted up against the adjacent display case.

“W…wait! This isn’t what it looks like!” Kade sputtered.

The guards stopped, shocked by both the sight of the corpse at their feet and the fact that a human stood in their midst.

“I’ll be…” One of them trailed off in disbelief.

“How did a cren…” The guard shook his head, snapping himself out of his trance. “You, human! Hands where we can see them.”

Kade proffered his hands in front of him and the guards swiftly bound his wrist with manacles–actual iron manacles–as if he were about to be led of a plank on some Vos Galleon in the seventeenth century.

“I didn’t do this! This was a setup!” Kade hollered.

The guards surrounded him and took him firmly, one in each arm. Kade could tell from their demeanour that they were not comfortable being that close to him, though that didn’t stop them from squeezing his arms too tightly. He yelped in pain and panic set in as he began squirming and kicking, attempting to free himself from the clutches of his captors that were nearly his size. He managed to get an arm free and push one of the guards away with his shoulder but not before the other could manage a strike on the back of his head with his nightstick. Kade’s world immediately went fuzzy and he stumbled forward, falling onto his face. He rolled over and a blurry orange room played in and out of his vision in a split frame, attempting to resolve itself. The guards hauled him back to his feet and restrained him once more, carting him down the aisle as his feet dragged behind him. As Kade’s vision began to clear, he cocked his head to the side, casting a glance down a perpendicular hall. At the far end, several units away, Kade could make out a figure watching them from the shadows. He tried to focus his eyes but the ebbing swell in his head wouldn’t allow it. As they passed, the figured turned into the shadows, disappearing with the small flourish of a cloak, but not before Kade could make out the familiar glint of a red stone against metal, fastened to the figure’s waist.

Kade’s last thought was of the images he had seen within that holy object. That other world that was not a world. And then came the very real world of darkness.