A Wolf's Howl, A Fairy's Wing

After combing through the city and finding essentially nothing but the same sigils they knew existed throughout the inhabited section of the city, the entire group once again gathered.

"Tell me again why we didn't start with this place?" Erik wondered, having cocked an eyebrow as he looked at a tall spire located in the exact centre of the city. They were outside the inhabited section of the city, but very close to both the palace and the pyramid where Erik recently got married.

Ankhur, the one who coordinated the search, shrugged indifferently. "Because starting from the middle is easier when you have only a few people, and starting from the edge is better when you have a lot. We have a lot, so I designed the search grid to work from the walls inward."

Erik smirked, but since he hadn't thought to check this place out right away either, he decided to leave it.

"Well, anyway," he sighed, his eyes scanning the spire in front of them. Although it was the tallest spire in the city, it wasn't visually any different from the others.

Rising sharply against the horizon, the stone spire appeared both strong and elegant, built from precisely stacked blocks of rich, earthy stone polished smooth by artisans' hands. Its surfaces bear subtle, geometric carvings, intertwining abstract shapes and stylised animal motifs.

Near the base, thick, solid walls taper gracefully upward, becoming slender and intricately tiered as they ascend skyward, crowned with a pointed pinnacle designed to catch the sun's first and last rays, turning the spire into a beacon visible for miles around.

"There doesn't live anyone here now, right? And it was searched some time ago, I assume?" Erik asked, directing his question to Ankhur and his family.

Ankhur nodded with a creased brow. "Right. Since it was so prominent, I naturally took it upon myself to search this place, but didn't discover anything interesting. It looked like this spire was once used as some kind of gathering place for leadership, or maybe researchers. There's a lot of rooms set-up in ways that make me think of conference halls, lecture halls, or libraries."

"Libraries?!" Elora immediately cried out through her bond with Erik, eyes wide. "I thought the only literature they had were those ancient scrolls they possessed themselves!"

Erik resisted the urge to scratch his ear due the ringing in his head, and looked at Ankhur with a cocked eyebrow. Before he could say anything, Ankhur inferred his look and shook his head. "Empty libraries…"

Elora cursed, Erik chuckled, Ankhur moved on.

Ankhur pointed up to the top of the spire with a thoughtful frown. "The most interesting thing I found was at the top of this thing. The very highest room is circular, and the only thing it holds is a statue of, what looked to me like, a Minotaur."

Instantly, everyone who knew of Eira and Audumla's true nature swivelled their gazes to Erik, whose eyes lit up. Elora, inside his dimension, couldn't hold herself back anymore, and appeared on Erik's shoulder again. Fortunately, the warriors who aided in the search had already retreated.

"A Minotaur, you say…?" she muttered knowingly, her shining eyes firmly locked on the spire's tip. "I'll eat my left wing if that's not what we're looking for…"

She glanced at Erik, a wide grin across her lips. "What are we waiting for?!"

Chuckling, Erik started walking to the spire entrance and everyone else quickly followed.

"The fact it's a Minotaur means something to you guys?" Leila asked, curiously. She and the rest of Naeku's family naturally noticed the looks Erik had gotten. "Do they actually exist?"

"Is that so strange?" Naeku giggled at her aunt as she pointed at the fluttering wings of the tiny woman on Erik's shoulder.

Leila pouted, but still found herself surprised by that revelation.

Erik glanced at Ankhur and explained. "I know you know about Audumla's existence, and the fact we got those medallions from her, but you might be interested to know that Audumla is a Minotaur."

Instantly, Ankhur's eyebrows—and his mother Fatima's—shot up. Since the medallion had passed from mother to son, in this case, Ankhur and Fatima were the ones who'd always been most interested in Audumla.

Their eyes swivelled upwards. Although they had scarcely known more than her name, Ankhur, Fatima, and their direct ancestors still revered Audumla, at least a little. Their steps increased in speed. "I should have come back here after getting my omnisense…" Ankhur muttered under his breath.

Meanwhile, Erik cocked an eyebrow at Elora. "I think we might have finally gotten an answer to whether or not this city was built by supporters of Audumla and Ymir."

Elora nodded, but didn't respond, lost in thought as she was.

They rapidly ascended the spire. The inside of it was built like a massive staircase, rotating around the spire's core, which was actually a sigil-operated elevator. Yet, since it wasn't big enough to fit them all, they decided to use the stairs.

Along the way, they passed many open archways, all of which led to the kind of rooms Ankhur mentioned before. They moved at the speed of old, first-rank Runebound due to Ankhur's parents, but they still ascended to the top in mere minutes.

At the top, their excited and curious group started filing into the room Ankhur described before. It was small and circular, with a dome-type roof, and a female Minotaur's statue in the middle. She was sitting on a stone pillow, her legs crossed, her eyes closed, and her hands resting on her knees.

The first people to enter were Erik, with Elora no his shoulder, and Ankhur. All three of them immediately rushed inside and unleashed their omnisense, but… surprisingly found nothing. Or, rather, they found the suspicious absence of something.

"It's shielded from omnisense," Elora explained, frowning. "This place is definitely something, but I'm not sure what yet…"

They continued looking around. Elora flew up from Erik's shoulder and closely inspected the statue, her inquisitive mind desperate for answers.

Meanwhile, behind them, the others started pouring into the room as well. At first, nothing changed, but the moment Naeku, Fatima, Enkai, and Nadia stepped across the boundary, something awakened.

Brrrrr

To everyone's shock, the room began to rumble. Their heads were on swivels as they tried to discover the origin of it. "Elora? What's going on?" Erik hummed solemnly, knowing she was the most likely to have answers.

Before the fairy could answer, the walls of the room suddenly started to retract and sink into the spire sides. Soon, they stood in the open air, on top of the spire, sun shining brightly down on them, and the statue's eyes flew open to reveal a pair of glowing, golden orbs.

A booming, female voice filled the space: "Syl'an, thalos ne'varin."

The group fell into a shocked silence. They stared at the statue with wide eyes. "Did… did that thing just speak?" Nadia, one of Ankhur's wives, spoke up with a small stutter.

"I… think so?" Enkai answered, his body tense and ready for action. "But what the hell did it say?"

Suddenly, as if in response, a slightly transparent, ghostly version of the statue floated out of its glowing eyes and hovered in front of them with creased brows. It said something else in that strange language, clearly with a hint of exasperation, but still no one understood what she was saying.

None, that was, except for Erik, Elora, and Eira, the latter of whom was still inside her medium, Erik's armguard.

"—Did your creators not anticipate the people who found you wouldn't speak Sylvari anymore?—" Erik asked with a hint of amusement, using the same language she used, much to the shock of his allies. 1

I mentioned Sylvari a few times before, at the very start of the novel, as being the language spoken on Söl :)