Deep Sea Embers

The bell tolled thrice before Inquisitor Vanna arrived at the primary cathedral, where she was promptly greeted by Bishop Valentine. Dressed in his official black attire, the aged cleric was silently praying to the statue of the Storm Goddess Gomona.

“Inquisitor Vanna,” Valentine voiced in a deep tone, “the Cathedral of Storms has dispatched a summons for the ‘listeners.'”

“Directly from the Storm Cathedral?!” Surprised, Vanna quickly approached the statue and bathed in the soft glow of a nearby lamp, “Isn’t the bell’s toll typically an announcement of a new anomaly or vision?”

“If it were a new discovery, the bell wouldn’t have tolled three consecutive times,” Valentine corrected her, shaking his head, “The tomb keeper from the other side of the ‘Tomb’ sent us the news. The Nameless King has made a move. The message was unclear, but it seems… the existing list is changing.”

As he spoke, the bishop turned towards Vanna, locking his gaze with hers.

“This time, we need to send a listener into the tomb to obtain direct instructions from the Nameless King. It’s our turn in the rotation, which means the Storm Church will provide a candidate from among our faithful. The choice has not been made yet, but both you and I are potential candidates.”

Vanna collected her thoughts and asked calmly, “When do we depart?”

“Now,” Valentine responded, signaling for Vanna to follow. They headed towards a door marked with sacred symbols situated behind the statue. The door was already open, revealing a deep and extensive passage. “The psionic passage is prepared.”

Vanna bowed respectfully to the statue before trailing behind Valentine. The two devout followers walked through the passageway, their path intermittently illuminated by flickering lights until they eventually reached a specialized secret chamber.

Unlike the brick and cement structure of the cathedral’s main body, this small chamber was constructed entirely from piled stones forming the walls and ceiling. In the center, a fire pit sunk into the ground, where a flame danced with no apparent fuel to stoke it.

There was a conspicuous absence of furniture; instead, the sound of running water echoed through the chamber. All around, the walls seemed to glisten with moisture, and even the floor had tiny streams flowing through the stone cracks. It gave the impression that the chamber wasn’t a room in the cathedral, but rather a water-logged cave at the bottom of the sea.

This wasn’t Vanna’s first time in this chamber. As an “inquisitor” of the city-state, and with a status equivalent to that of the bishop, she also had the right to use the “psionic passage” located here. This seemingly insignificant chamber was a “portal” that connected to the psionic network.

Every city-state’s central cathedral has similar facilities hidden during its construction. Every recognized religion in this world has a similar provision. In this case, the priests of the Storm Goddess referred to this chamber as the “flooded caves”. Though the naming and aesthetics vary, they all served the same purpose: to transport the occupant’s spirit into a vast network connecting souls. This way, no matter the distance between individuals, they could still communicate through the Boundless Sea.

The door of the secret chamber slowly shut, with the intricate runes intermingling and meshing together to form a seal. Once sealed, no living beings could either enter or leave.

Together, Vanna and Valentine stood by the central fire pit. They bowed their heads, eyes fixated on the leaping holy flame, as they invoked the name of the Storm Goddess.

The illusionary sound of water, at first subtle, grew louder, escalating from droplets to waves and then tsunamis!

Simultaneously, mist overtook the chamber in response to the growing intensity of the flame. Visibility was reduced to nearly nothing, the room filled with the plain white of churning gas and water.

Knowing what came next, Vanna closed her eyes and prepared to submerge herself in the water.

The cold sensation quickly faded as her consciousness receded. When she opened her eyes again, she was no longer in the watery cave but in a vast square surrounded by crumbling stone pillars. Beyond the square was a murky, chaotic horizon speckled with sparks. What they represented was a mystery, even to Vanna.

After a brief distraction, Vanna noticed several figures standing in the square. Each was a dark phantom, their features obscured, only silhouettes visible. Despite not seeing their faces, the familiar aura each figure exuded confirmed to Vanna that they were devout followers of the Storm Goddess. Individuals like herself, who wielded great power in the other city-states. Some were even stationed in the continuously moving main Storm Cathedral out on the Boundless Sea!

“It appears we are the last to arrive,” a flickering shadow approached, which Vanna recognized as Valentine without any introduction. “I was also the last during the previous meeting….”

“Do the saints from the other city-states reside in the secret chamber?” Vanna pondered aloud, “Every time the summon is announced, they always manage to arrive minutes before us…”

“Ever since Saint-Folsson penned ‘first’ in the assembly hall’s register twenty years ago, they have all competed to arrive early,” Valentine explained, shaking his head, “It is incomprehensible… The goddess won’t pay special attention to an individual because of this.”

Vanna found herself in complete agreement with Valentine’s logic. Their conversation was abruptly interrupted by a sudden boom resonating from the crowd’s end.

Both Vanna and Valentine simultaneously looked towards the sound’s source and were startled to see the square’s ground rising. The broken old stone brick waved like water ripples, within which, structures rapidly grew. First, pale spires, followed by sloping stone walls and quaint columns.

Almost instantly, the structure was completed before Vanna’s vision—a massive building constructed from pale boulder blocks.

It was a drab “palace,” an ancient edifice from a lost era. It featured a pyramid-shaped main body surrounded by obelisks and towers. The style was unlike any other city-state in the world, and its low, oppressive atmosphere did not resemble a place for the living.

It was less of a palace and more of a mausoleum.

In fact, it indeed was a mausoleum— a mausoleum belonging to some ancient, powerful civilization.

Vanna, like everyone else, was irresistibly drawn to gaze at the pyramid’s base. Under countless stares, the mausoleum’s door finally slowly opened.

The hefty pale stone gate receded to the sides, and an incredibly tall figure slowly emerged from the mausoleum.

It was the tomb keeper of the tomb for the Nameless King.

To Vanna, it was difficult to assert that “he” was still a living human.

The tomb keeper’s body was swathed in layers of bandages, half of which were charred black, and the rest adorned with chains of runic shackles. Some of these shackles had even penetrated the tomb keeper’s flesh, effectively becoming bones and nerve endings. The ancient being resembled a horrifying mummy from ancient Egypt but seemed more distorted and cursed.

Even though it wasn’t her first time seeing this important “tomb keeper,” Vanna still took a moment to inhale deeply to relax her tense muscles.

Then she noticed the “tomb keeper” heading directly towards her.

The candidate had been chosen.

The being walked past everyone in the square, halting before Vanna. Through the black bandages and runic chains, she could feel the tomb keeper observing her with that single exposed red eye.

“You may enter the tomb,” the tomb keeper uttered, his voice as hoarse as if it emerged from a corpse. He then raised his right hand, seemingly charred by fire, and grabbed a quill that flew out of the tomb, a parchment following.

“Document what you hear,” the tomb keeper commanded succinctly.