Chapter 1 - The Man on the Mountain

The mountain was an odd one. Every single plant, every tree was supremely crafted. It was as if each object coming from the dirt had been made by someone. As they walked up the mountain Peter had to admire the workmanship of the owner. It was simple for a master craftsman to make everything in on the mountain given enough time, but to find a place for them seemed to be far more of a task than he could have imagined. As eclectic and as wild as the foliage was, it still all had a purpose. Each object seemed to have its own unique use, and they were all brimming with so much vitality it was blinding.

He bent down to look at a plant on the side of the path. It exuded an air of death that he found rather delightful. It reminded him of home and his family's obsession with the makeup of mortality, the little things that made life and all the things that ended it. This plant seemed to be a creation that attempted to restore lost life. He was amazed, because he did not think such an object could even be thought of outside of his family. He could tell that the creator was obsessed with the concept of life and death. Some of the insights that had been made for the creation of these objects were on a level that even he could not have conceived of. They were all so oriented around the link between Life and Death, about repairing the body or healing the soul, Peter could not help but be surprised. They looked nothing like either what the Absolution clan would produce nor what the Mephistos would be capable of. They were something new entirely; trying to create a link between the two paths of the world. It was a mirror to what an Immortal would attempt to do during their ascension; how they would find a balance to keep both sides of their path in check. Every object Peter saw, not simply the plant he had in his hands, but the trees, the stones, even the golems and homunculi that skittered about the undergrowth seemed to be an attempt to forge a link between the two.

The owner of the mountain was a madman, someone who was driven to do things that no Challenger would ever conceive of, simply because to try to do so was an impossibility. Even an Ascendent Immortal of two paths could not force their two paths to link before they were supposed to.

He stood up and ushered the woman at his side to follow him up the mountain. Meekly, she followed after him, her limp green hair flicking in the wind against her hood as she followed behind Peter, step for step. He glanced back to make sure she was following before facing the mountain and climbing up the path. He found it irksome to look after her like this, but it was something he had to do. There were a thousand little things that he had to fix, had to repair, but he needed the master of the mountain in order to continue his journey. He needed help.

The path wound round the mountain, through the forest and into various different regions of study that the owner seemed to have gone through. Through Creation, Destruction, Life, Death, Order and Chaos, linking each one in ways that were bizarre and unconventional. The moment that he got to the places that crossed through Death and Destruction he could not help but be both inspired and unsettled. There were ideas that he came across within the mountain that he could not believe people had came across. Plants that exuded poisons that promoted cell growth, objects that secreted gasses that could burst souls from excess power. These weapons of war would be prized by any military, but were simply littered across the ground for Peter to avoid. They were not even traps, just discarded objects with seemingly no merit to their creator.

He placed one such stone in his bag for later study, wrapped in a cloth made from the skin of a creature he had killed on his climb of Babel. It had a resistance to poisons that was rather formidable, so upon its death he began to wrap up poisons within it, until he was in a situation to contain it properly. He would research the stone once he had some free time, perhaps even chancing to gain some insights into the mind of its maker, if the maker agreed.

Carefully walking through the valley, he followed the trail up the path. He listened to the fake bird calls and sounds of the created animals roaming the undergrowth, but with each moment he became more relaxed. The creatures seemed to become more scarce as they reached higher into the mountain. It was as if they were afraid of something at the top of the mountain.

The air became thinner, and the foliage became sparse. The path continued to wind until finally they reached the house on top of the hill. It was more of a tower than a house, but it split the skyline like the mountain it sat on. Peter could see for miles around, but in comparison to the vibrancy of the mountain he had just walked up, the plains below him looked positively barren. No matter how synthetic the life on this mountain was, it was vibrant.

The house had an air of standoffishness about it as he walked over to the front door. Intricate engravings covered the two slabs of wood that closed off the entrance, depicting a variety of events; from the creation of the world to the end of the first age, the rise of the clans to the fall of Hephaistia. It tried to show the entire tale of the tower, but even though the engravings warped and changed after set periods of time there was simply no way of depicting it all on one door. Every story that had been, that could be, had happened within the tower tens of times. It was endless and all encompassing, far beyond a simple door.

The sound of Peter's knocking echoed around the mountaintop. The woman behind him shuffled and stood even further in his shadow. She was unwilling to follow without Peter. Finally they heard a shuffling and a clattering behind the door before it began to creak open. Inch by inch the door swung wider, until it revealed a dingy hallway and a little boy standing with his hands upon the open doors.

“Can I help you?” The boy asked the two people cautiously.

“I hope so. We're here to see the master of the mountain. I have been travelling for a long time, looking for someone with his skill. I need his help”. He glanced back at the woman who had followed him up the mountain. “We do”.

“I can go and get him if you like, but he may not come. You'll have to wait there until he does though. I can't let people into the building”.

“That's fine. Just get your master”.

The boy ran off and Peter began to wait. He sat down near the door and called the hooded woman to sit with him. Seconds became minutes, minutes became hours and soon enough an entire day had gone by. The sun was beginning to set when the boy finally returned with a small stone in his hand. He smiled at Peter and touched it to the doorway.

“You can come in, but he said don't touch anything. You took enough on the way up the mountain”.

Peter looked shocked, but quickly masked it. “Alright. Is there anything else we should know before we come inside?”

“As long as you don't touch anything or hurt anything then you'll have a fine time. If you break your word or one of the rules then you'll be expelled to the bottom of the mountain and the path will close behind you”.

“Don't break the rules or I lose my chance. Got it”.

Following after the boy, they walked through the hall and into a well lit gallery with various objects on display. Contrary to the thousands of items that littered the mountainside, none of these objects had any purpose. They did nothing. Spliced between pictures of scenery and depictions of various epic tales was the image of a woman with red hair. There were hundreds of images of her, engravings, paintings, even sculptures, all depicting her at various stages of her life. Sometimes she was a young girl, sometimes she was older, in her teens. There were times where she was older, a woman in her prime, and times where she was living her life as an old lady. He stopped at the pictures of the woman when she was younger and frowned. She seemed familiar, but he could not place why.

After a moment the young boy ushered them along, leading them through the center of the gallery and past the main piece of the entire room. Encased in glass was the image of a woman, bathed in blood. Her stomach torn open and her mana reservoir floating feet in front of her. Her eyes were open, staring at the ceiling, and her hair was brown, matted and clumped together with dirt and grime. Under her nails was more blood, hair and small chunks of flesh. She had been in brutal combat, and had lost her life from that very event. Beneath the crystal there was a small plaque, the only one in the entire gallery. It said the words ‘Cleopatra Tiberian Ignis’.

Peter stopped once more and ran his fingers over the name. An old memory echoed in the back of his mind, a young girl separating him from his love. He gained his love eventually but back then he had sworn he would get revenge upon the parties involved in their separation. He had never truly forgiven her, but looking at the room dedicated to her memory and the display of how she died he could not muster the rage. It was an old wound, long since healed by the path of time and the wisdom that came with life. He no longer held onto that hate, or much of the hate that was from that time.

Crossing the last part of the room they reached a door. Unlike the main door of the building this one was simple, unadorned with the fine carvings that caught Peter's eye. It was sturdy and seemed to exist solely to keep people out, or to keep what was inside in. The boy reached the door and knocked twice before the door swung open of its own accord.

Inside was a dark room, with no easy access to light. Vaguely Peter could see the outline of a man sitting at a table of some kind. The man turned as they walked into the room and faced them, his eyes piercing through the darkness like torchlight. He stood up and walked over to them, before going out into the gallery to face them. He was a tall man, with filthy, knotted black hair that reached his waist and a beard that stretched from below his nose to the middle of his chest. His eyes were wild, and his silver left arm shone in the light of the room.

“What do you want,” he growled.

“My name is Peter Mephist-”

“I know who you are,” the man said, interrupting Peter. “Tell me why you are here or leave. I've given you enough face by meeting you in person, so cut the crap”.

“Fine,” Peter said, glancing back to the hooded woman. If not for her then he would not stand for such rude behaviour, but the augury had said that this mountain was the home of the person who would find his hope. “We are here because I have heard that you have gleaned some insights into restoring a person to life from death. I... I need those insights. I know true revival is supposed to be impossible but I have to...”

“You heard wrong,” the man said, cutting him off again. “I can't bring the dead back. Whoever told you that was wrong”.

“I was informed by a source that is never wrong. I was told to come here today and you would have found the answer I seek. My family's augers are sometimes not completely clear but they are never wrong”.

“Well today they are. Do you think I would be here if I could truly bring the dead back to life? Do you think SHE WOULD BE HERE? DO YOU?” He yelled, pointing at the crystal in the middle of the room. His eyes were wild, and there was a hook in his voice that made Peter uncomfortable. The man was not well balanced.

“Look. This is what I was told. I had a look at your devices coming up the mountain, and with your breadth of study you must be close”.

“They are all failures. Every single thing below this house on the mountain was a failure. If anything truly worked then I would not have left her in the stone. She would be free. She would be free. At this point I think they only chance for my wish... I guess our wish...” He glanced at the cloaked woman before returning to stare at the young woman trapped in glass. “I think the only chance is a miracle. And while I think miracles can happen, we are not the ones who miracles would happen to”.

“I'll agree. We aren't the type, but still...” Peter sighed before pulling down the hood and revealing a woman with green hair and a blank gaze. “Rose needs your help Laurence. You saved her once, please save her again”.

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