The inner courtyard of the tower was gloomy. Much of the lighting came from thin slit windows that were high in the walls that flanked Laurence and his companions as they made their way down the musty carpet. Dust kicked up after every step, but there were no cobwebs, no scuttling cockroach steps, squeaks of rodents, or cawing birds in the rafters. The building was devoid of life of any kind and it had been for a long time. The only sound was their footsteps. Even the outside had been quelled by the complex arrays that lined every inch of the building, and that served to annunciate the steps more. They were alone here, and they could feel it.
Laurence’s truesense roamed wildly as he walked down the hallway. There was so much history written into the very walls of the building that he could not help but pay attention to every single glyph that had been scored into the very earth by man, woman, and child through the life of the tower. Most of it was a jumbled mess of interlocking notes and snipes at people who had worked within the building during their time, but now it was the last record that these people had ever lived. In some ways it was the last will of the old clan, Laurence’s birth family, and despite his obsession and drive, he knew he would neither leave this building to rot, nor leave it open to looting once he was done. This was as much a part of his heritage as his Book was.
At one end of the courtyard was a simple unadorned door, one that would never attract the attention of a normal person for any reason than it being front and centre of the wall it was embedded into, however to Laurence it was like a beacon. The rune arrays, the glyphs and the materials it was made from screamed to him that it was protecting something of the utmost importance. He immediately dashed over and placed his palm upon the door before slowly opening it. The rest of the building he knew could wait, this was important.
As he opened the door he was confronted with a waft of stagnant air. The stones that lit the room behind flickered to life and dimly illuminated the contents of the faux-vault. The interior was sparse, the same maroon carpet, the same window style, even the same kind of glyphs that were only visible with truesense. The difference was that there were three objects of note within; first and foremost was a furnace twice the height of a man. It was a monolith that seemed to represent the nature of Creation and seemed to resonate with Laurence's very essence. The longer he looked at it the stronger the resonance became. After a full minute, he tore his eyes away from the furnace and turned back to Peter and Fen.
“Peter, take Fen from here. This place contains something I don't understand and could be detrimental to the boy's progress”. Peter nodded and walked Fen away. As soon as they were half way across the the inner courtyard Laurence closed the door and looked at the other two objects of note.
The second object was a skeleton. It was obviously the corpse of a member of the clan, but he had died in this room and his bones had gone through the quenching of Immortal Ascension. This figure was obviously one of the elders of Hephaistia, but how he came to be in this room Laurence simply could not work out. After racking his brain for any reason why there would be such a body here, he moved on to the third point of interest. On the simple wooden table next to the seated skeleton was was a copy of the Book of Creation, but on top of that was a folded piece of parchment. Laurence picked up the parchment and frowned as he read the contents. He glanced back at the skeleton before returning to the paper, but his frown only continued to deepen. Reaching the bottom of the page, he looked at the furnace and at the man before refolding the parchment and tapping his hand with it softly. Glancing around the room he continued to frown, to think and to consider the contents of the document before finally he turned to the door and walked out of the room.
“Guys, can you come over here,” he called out, reopening the paper and glancing at it. He scanned it several times with his truesight, but there was nothing untowards about the glyphs that made the page imperishable.
“What’s wrong?” Peter asked as he and Fen came over.
“I found something in that room... something I can’t accurately explain, but that doesn’t really matter. It does the explaining for me”.
“I think I found the answer to everyone’s questions about the old clan... About how, and why the Hephaistia clan fell”.
“You’ve got to be joking,” Peter replied, the incredulous cut to his voice unmistakable. “You’re claiming you’ve just found a piece of paper that has solved the biggest question that has spanned the last two cycles?” Sighing, he shook his head. “Come on then, the information ought to be worth something at least”.
“Oh, it is. Believe me”. Laurence cleared his throat as he opened the paper before him fully. “To whomever finds this paper, my name is Aleyan Devra Hephaistia. I am, or perhaps it’s better to say was, an Ascendant Immortal of the Hephaistia clan. The clan is my family, and I love every member of it dearly, but I have done something truly awful for the greater good of the Tower itself. I know my name will go down as that of a traitor to my people, but it had to be done. To whit, this is my last will and testament.
“Several years ago, I was on the hunt for whatever is beyond the Tower, desperately trying to improve myself, when I came across a young man named Evram Halere. To most he was simply a madman, a boy kicked in the head by a horse and not right since, but to me? To me he was a warning. He had been set up by some power or other, and I could tell because the things he was muttering were down right uncanny. He knew secrets of the Tower that no young man, not even one as learned as an Immortal could, or should know. He spoke of information that I gleaned once I completed my second ascension, of the figure of Babel herself and of legends that most considered lunacy but they were ones that I LIVED THROUGH. The worst part of it all was that he knew me. He was expecting me.
“I spent two years with him, speaking to him and learning things I never thought I would from a boy less than a hundredth of my age. In the end though, the boy died. He burned his life away to warn me and guide me in the path I had to take. This was the price of the the true prophet, one who could see the many paths of the future clearly and could guide someone to a single goal. He was an incredibly special person, perhaps even unique to all the worlds in the Tower, but his goal was clear. He would do anything he could to save the Tower from its doom, and as such he set my fate in stone.
“You might be wondering why a young man who died after me knowing him for two years caused me to betray my clan and well... that is awkward to explain. You see, opposing the nine Book clans politically are the four godbeast clans and the thousand sects. We differ in views on how things should run, but we work on a level playing field, often ignoring our politicking for the good of the Tower as a whole.
“Opposing us in essence is that hellhole Avalon, the pigs of Gi. They are an anathema to all life within the Tower, and are the cause of the doom I speak of, by virtue of their own inevitable doom. You see, when all things were young in the Tower, a man called Arutha Pendraeg discovered that he could draw forth the latent potential from within the bones of another person in order to empower himself. This power was incredible, however it had drawbacks. The first was that Arutha, who had a very powerful set of senses, could tell that he was not getting the full power from the bones he was using, in fact he could only gain half and the power would only stay within him for as long as the bones did. The second major drawback was that from the moment he used the first bone, supposedly off of his deceased best friend, he felt an overwhelming sense of crisis hang over him. He needed a remedy, so he began searching.
“He searched and searched, and after a decade he found Merlain Devilsbane, someone much like poor Evram, or at least that is what he claimed. They knew of Arutha’s Gi, for they had the ability to detect someone's potential, as well as measure their capability to absorb other people's potential. They knew of the doom that hung over Arutha’s head, but most importantly they knew of a way that could remove it.
“The doom was that those who practice the path of Gi would be tormented within the cycle of reincarnation for all eternity. There were ways around this fate, all of which Arutha would develop himself, but he was told in no uncertain terms that the Tower itself would find them the cycle after the first perfect Kimbramancer was born. There would be signs in the sky, golden flashes of light, and from that point on it was an hourglass emptying as that accursed clan awaited the herald of their deaths. A herald who would be a child of the red Book.
“Through the following years Arutha Pendraeg built a kingdom, Avalon, and painstakingly constructed a society where they could breed better Avalonians, Kimbramancers, and better sources of Gi, boneslaves. With the help of Merlain’s family line, he worked on answers to the consequences of the flaws of Gi; he entombed bodies especially so they would not return to the cycle of reincarnation, he perfected the production of boneslaves, and also he created a method of assimilating the strength a person got from their bone piercings. The most important thing, however, was that he began a generational plan to deal with the doom in its entirety. There was no way of knowing how long it would take to form a perfect Kimbramancer, it could be one generation or a hundred, so he did the only thing that was reasonable in his situation. He began a plan to break fate.
“The plan of Avalon was always to break the Tower apart and replace Babel as the sole hegemon, however I don't think they realised that removing Babel would just destroy it entirely. There would be no reshaping, no rise of a Kimbramancer eternal kingdom, only destruction. This future was the one I set out to stop, however in order to save everyone I had to wipe out the clan of Creation. I betrayed my family and aided Avalon in their assault of our homeland, but am not so heartless that I could just kill innocents, so I did my best to save every child of the clan I could. I sealed all the children too young to connect with the Book away within a device that should still be stored at the highest floor of this tower. They will be safe for millennia, even though I know it will not be needed.
“Either way their aim is the well of Yoth. I have no idea if the well can do what you ask of it, Laurence, but it will break if they are not stopped there. My entire life after meeting Evram was set to bring you to that well, and I know you will get there in the end. You'll go for no other reason than you need the Tower for your lover to keep living. I have been waiting for you and Fen for cycles. I don't expect to be forgiven, but I am sorry that there was no other option. I hope you live up to Evram’s claims”.
There was silence as Laurence stopped speaking. Even reading it aloud did not help with how much he had to take in. Fen was a smart boy but there was a lot spoken of that he simply did not understand, or have any reference to work from. Peter, on the other hand, was thoroughly gobsmacked.
“Did he actually reference you and Fen by name at the end of that? I kind of can't believe that... You're not screwing with me are you?”
“He did, and I'm not. I read the thing verbatim”.
“By the lady... Babel’s eye... Is he claiming responsibility for our entire lives?”
“Well he's directly responsible for the nature of my birth. Come on, we should have a look at the child storage that he claimed to have made”.
“Claimed to?”
Laurence turned and began walking towards the nearest stairwell to the next level of the tower. “I've seen the concept in the book, the last ditch effort to store a living thing, but there's usually some massive caveat or downside to it. Classically the storage unit cannibalises itself after too much use, or it requires a constant energy source to keep things in stasis, but to claim a thousand year seal would require some real finagling. It is certainly possible, but the main reason I'm suspect is that there is no record of the device within the Book of Creation. If he had made it then his connection to his Book would’ve recorded it unless it... was sealed...” Laurence completely froze still half way up a step before stamping down hard and rushing up the stairs. “Oh you clever man!” He cried out as he began laughing incessantly. “You clever, clever bastard!”
He skipped up four floors with increasing speed, leaving Peter and Fen to follow in his wake, only stopping as the realised the next floor was open to the elements. He turned and scanned the room fervently before locking on to a simple stone pillar. Walking over, he looked at the object fervently before smiling and sending his truesense in to analyse the makeup of the device. Upon the pillar was a depiction of several people in a very simplistic art style, as if a child had drawn them in the stone with a knife. Within was an entirely different beast. Hundreds of thousands of complex glyphs spiralled about as if drawn by a master artist, painstakingly manipulating the materials within the pillar and the very nature of reality to allow the near two thousand people contained within to survive in stasis for as long as necessary. Unwilling to break anything, or let the children out immediately, Laurence pulled his truesense back and carefully attempted to lift the pillar up. It rose without complaint and Laurence could not help but smile. Aleyan Hephaistia was a gifted practitioner of the Book for sure.
He placed the pillar into his storage ring and walked back down the stairs towards Peter and Fen. As he met up with the two of them, he motioned for them to follow him and four figures, two men, a child, and a silent woman, made their way towards the door they entered from. As they exited the tower they were confronted with a wall of people. Over a hundred Heaven ranked scavengers had flocked to the stairwell, salivating at the potential chance to get into a former clan stronghold.
Standing at the top of the steps, Laurence looked down upon them impassively. He knew that given the chance they would rush into the tower to ransack it, but he did not want to simply seal the tower up again. That would be doing a disservice to Yun and any Hephaistian who came to this place after him. Raising his flesh and blood arm, thick coils of mana belched out of his skin and spread to key points within the tower. They were sealing points that seemed to have been placed specifically by a figure long since dead. For what reason he could not tell, but Laurence knew that it was time to unseal them. The bindings tore under Laurence’s meticulous work and slowly stones ripped themselves from the houses in the surroundings before rushing up into the sky then landing and fusing seamlessly with the fallen tower. Bit by bit the tower rebuilt itself under Laurence’s direction and the call of the spells heavily woven into the materials that used to make up the missing top half. Piece by piece the monolithic building once more began to dominate the skyline, and still Laurence looked on at the scavengers impassively.
With a simple burst of his aura, solidified by his mana and connection to the Book of Creation, he knocked over the figures below him. “Hephaistia has returned,” he growled before walking through the crowd like they were fallen wheat. The doors to the tower slammed shut as he moved away, but nothing else in the region moved for a while. Those reckless scavengers stood as still as statues, even the wild animals seemed to have been stunned silent. Slowly they began moving again, but still the tower loomed over them all.
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