The Years of Apocalypse - A Time Loop Progression Fantasy

"Where's the Gate?" Mirian said. "And how do you know? We didn't find anything in that cave."

"I know where the Gate is because it wasn't in the cave," Gabriel said, still smiling. "It's a simple matter of process of elimination. If it's not in the city, not under the city, and not under the dunes outside the city, it must be in the only place we haven't checked. Go ahead and guess."

"Just tell me," Mirian said, impatient.

"Make two guesses, then I will."

She thought of their recent conversation. "You've deduced a network of Labyrinth generated passages somewhere near Mahatan."

"No, but close."

Mirian thought. They started walking back towards the city, which meant Gabriel thought it was there, or near there. But he just said a place we haven't checked. "The Mahatan Royal Palace?" The palace was forbidden to enter, but contained all sorts of riches. Viridian would want to see the jeweled lotuses. Torres would probably love to see the ancient spellrod designs. Mirian hadn't found any sort of deep tunnels or underground areas large enough to contain an Elder Gate, so she'd eliminated it as a possibility without actually infiltrating it. Perhaps she'd been too hasty.

"Hmm? No, I've been there, though I suppose you haven't. A lot of fancy stuff, all of it useless to us because it doesn't have a lever to pull labeled 'stop the moon from falling.' Well, I'll tell you."

***

They stood before the Mahatan Oasis. It was ringed with lush greenery, and the wealthy and poor alike of the city came often to walk the shores or to pray at the blessed waters. "You think it's there?" Mirian peered down. The waters were murky. Large spell engines to the north and east were positioned to prevent sand and soot particles from blowing into the waters, but they only filtered out the majority of debris. Long ago, the waters had apparently been crystal clear. That would have been beautiful to see, she thought. Briefly, she imagined Jei standing by her side as they looked out across the waters.

She suppressed her emotions again. "I don't suppose you have air bubble or air from water?"

"Don't tell me you don't have them in that massive grimoire of yours," Gabriel said. "How do you prepare such a massive spellbook, anyways?"

"I steal it," she lied. "You can steal several books, then rebind the pages into a single book. Just make sure you strip any tracking glyphs out."

"Or kill the arcanist you take it from," Gabriel said, tapping his head.

Mirian looked around. "Okay, well, I'd rather avoid pissing off every person in Mahatan by violating the sacred waters, so I'm going to sneak in." She took out a piece of parchment and began scribbling down a list of crystals. "If you could go to a few arcanist shops and get these conduit crystals, that would be great. Alternatively, an alchemist should have the base elements needed to create the crystals. I'll meet you at the inn."

"I do the drudgery, and you get to do the fun exploration?"

"Yes, because I'm properly prepared," Mirian said, tapping her head.

"How are you going to sneak in?"

"Very carefully," she replied. As soon as they'd parted, she sought out a smithy. She telekinetically knocked over a jar of oil to distract the smith, then used lift object to grab the anvil. Then, she ducked into an alley, checking that no one was watching. She cast total camouflage, then levitated straight up until she was well above the city, heading out over the oasis. The sun was high enough in the sky that most people weren't looking up. There were people all along the shore, so she aimed for the center of the waters. Technically, since she was surrounding herself with an air bubble, she wasn't touching the sacred waters, but she doubted any magister or Holy Sentinel would see it that way. She used manipulate water to hold the surface of the water still as she descended into it.

The buoyancy of the air bubble was a problem for moving down, which is why she'd brought the anvil. It was easier to let gravity pull her down than to try to propel herself.

Below, the world was dark. Above, the sunlight glimmered. As she dropped, the light above her faded. She cast a light spell, letting it shine bright.

The steep slopes of the oasis were some sort of marble, and the rock glimmered with white and pink tones. Then, she caught a glimpse of an old arch. Then a chunk of an old pillar. Her heart pounded. She still was maintaining her levitation spell, and as she went deeper, she increased the mana flowing through its glyphs so that her descent slowed.

Then, it loomed in front of her, emerging from the depths into Mirian's light with a suddenness that startled her, shifting and moving as it always did, even thought it was still.

The Gate.

Mirian brought her buoyancy into equilibrium so that she could approach it and brightened her light. Like the Luamin moon illuminating a dark landscape, the dark shapes in the depths resolved themselves. She beheld the ruins of a great city. Dark scorch marks marred the beautiful stonework, but even after all this time, she could make out the motifs carved into the buildings. Her heart caught as she examined the old statues. Most of the depictions of the Elder Gods were similar enough she could identify them, but the tools they carried seemed so different.

Her eyes settled on a statue that was clearly Altrukyst, though the object he carried resembled no lantern she'd ever seen. And instead of the hole in His chest with the two orbs linked by a chain, the stone was worked in complex concentric spheres.

It resembled the Gate that was before her now.

Her eyes lingered on Xylatarvia. Her hand usually rested on a great ship, complete with great sails and complex rigging. This thing, though, looked nothing like a ship. There was no visible deck, and it resembled an modern Akanan tower turned on its side. It didn't even look like a modern spell engine-driven ship. Instead, it was like there were three cups attached to the back, and a little umbrella sticking out of the front. Was that supposed to be the sail?

Then her heart skipped again. She had missed it initially, but one of the statues covered in detritus was the ninth Elder God. Just like in the Vault of the Labyrinth, three swords pierced the chest of this unknown God.

What does it mean?

She had given Gabriel his mission to go get crystals out of convenience, but also so he'd be busy and wouldn't know how long she could sustain spells with her mana. The longer she was down here, the less plausible any lie about her capabilities. She tore her eyes from the statues and began her search for what she had begun to think of as the 'conduit' room. Much like core conduits arrayed in a spell engine, the creatures that ran the Gates seemed to have something similar, only they seemed to interface directly with the conduit crystals rather than a panel of glyphs. She couldn't quite figure out how that worked. Perhaps they were like myrvites and had access to natural spells?

She brightened her light more to better reveal the ruins.

Again, the buildings looked so strange. Within the stone, she could see corroded steel beams. But that implied the pre-Cataclysm civilization had used construction techniques that had only recently been discovered. A scholar of the Viaterria would want to know about this. She had known about Torrian Tower and its lost techniques using glyphs in construction—but what else had the long lost generations mastered?

How much had been lost in the Cataclysm?

And another thought: How much will be lost in this one?

The door to the conduit room seemed to be well hidden. Mirian went back to her spellbook, looking through her 'utility' section. She knew the approximate dimensions of a conduit room, and she knew the composition of the crystals on the panel. She could specify a spell that looked for those things. It was, admittedly, a bit hard to do while also holding levitation, lift object, enhanced light, and air bubble spells.

Mirian cast. She felt the mental tug as the spell revealed a location to her. It was now clear why she couldn't find it: the room was buried under one of the large collapsed structures. The amount of mana and spellpower it would take to move such a thing was daunting, even for her.

The adjustments to her soul in the Endelice had allowed her to absorb small amounts of ambient mana. The adjustments to her soul in the ruins of the First City had allowed her to sense remnants of soul energy. When fighting Apophagorga, she'd realized she could siphon pieces of soul energy and then 'degrade' it to turn it into B-class mana. Why not siphon the souls I can sense directly? she thought. That would increase the amount of mana she was regaining by a lot more than what was normally possible through natural regeneration or even the boon she'd gained in the Endelice. Enough to do some real work down here.

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Mirian anchored herself at the bed of the oasis, dropping the anvil on the stone and then hooking her feet so she could release both the lift object and levitation spells she was using to achieve neutral buoyancy. That would free up more mana and spellpower for her. She then cast air from water to replenish the oxygen in her bubble. Then, she prepared force drill and lift object, this time both enhanced to better pulverize the objects they were used on, then began to cast.

The ruins trembled, and Mirian's spellbook glowed. The sounds of stone tearing and shattering were distorted by the water. Great gouts of dust and debris were kicked up as her two spells descended on the stone and steel tower. Mirian strained as her spells lifted colossal chunks, a ton at a time, up into the waters and cast them aside. Deep thuds echoed as the stones smashed into the ground. The earth trembled.

Mirian strained with the effort. She wasn't just casting the force spells, she was also pulling whatever dancing fragments of souls were nearby to burn.

Fragments that still had long lost memories. There had been a city here once—

—a city of spires all around, shining glass and steel. A world so alien, but the people walking around, so familiar—

—a woman looking up at the night sky, the stars being shrouded by a line of fire, feeling dread like no other. The only thing between them and Armageddon, a pale spot of shadow. A name played through her mind, and a prayer—

—the Elder Gate, spinning, faster and faster. Great gouts of fire erupting. A tower falling. Screams, as the world became ash—

Mirian redoubled her efforts, now not just to continue the spell, but to hold on to this moment, to not be overwhelmed. Another deep CRACK sent a deep rumbling through the water. Part of the cliff started to crack.

—a memory of a child hugging her father. He murmurs sweet sounds, then breaks away from the child's embrace. The tears fall like rain. She begs him not to go. Begs—

—fire streams through the streets. Another building falls. Above, the sky has turned white. This woman has never felt her arcane sense before, not ever, not even when she was standing next to an archmage. She thought she simply couldn't do magic. Now, she feels the arcane forces at work like a landslide running through her. The pain is worse than the birth of her second child—

Landslide, Mirian realized. She had sheared through too much stone. The tower was supporting a cliff face. She snapped off all her spells at once and just cast one: a massive force shield. Water slammed into her. She needed more souls, but they were screwing with her sense of time and place. She felt more of them, so many. How many had perished here? More than even the First City.

—a father leaves her daughter. He and his companions levitate through the towers, a band of archmages. The Elder Gate comes into view, burning like a sun. The control room sits just next to it; their only hope of saving the city. Above, the night sky is the only thing brighter than the glowing Gate before them—

—a hand, covered in burns, trembles as it reaches for a crystal. A pang of regret, that he'd never see her again—

Mirian felt the pressure wave smashing through the water as the cliff face smashed into her shield. The shield and the rocks hitting it both cracked, sending a flash of light through the depths. Mirian cast another shield, and another slab of rock smashed into it. This time, she couldn't compensate for the change in inertia, and she went spinning into the now murky waters. Her lungs burned. She kicked her legs to swim, though she wasn't sure what direction she was moving in. She cast air from water and gathered the results into a new air bubble. It was forming too slowly. A rock smacked into her shoulder, sending her spinning again. Her air bubble vanished. It was hard to focus, and not just because she was being crushed by the pressure. Something about the fragments she'd seen had shaken loose another memory from her childhood. Memories of death, of pain, of rage, of sorrow. Memories no child should have ever had.

Calm, she told herself, and she remembered her adoptive father's words. The emotion is only temporary. You are not there anymore. You are here. He had always held her hands after her tantrums, and he had always been so calm. She felt the sudden urge to see her parents again. But Ibrahim's attacks had probably caught them as they journeyed from Alkazaria. If she went to the Florin Principality, they might not be waiting for her.

She cast air bubble and air from water again. Her lungs strained, but she suppressed the panic. She was in the stance of the Lone Pine, she realized. Whatever had happened, she had endured; she would endure this, now.

She felt the cool air on her face, and gasped for breath.

—a memory of a great pit, and the Gate lying at the bottom, along with so many shattered towers. The sky grown dark again. A city in mourning, but some of them had survived—

And more memories. These ones, hers. A silhouette. A woman. That house from her memories, the one with the garden, and beyond it, endless dunes. Her mother. Her smile, illuminated by glyph lamps. Hair that was so like her own. Her beautiful voice singing a lullaby. And then, that terrible memory, the one that lived in the darkest corner of her mind, the one she could never reach—flashes of light. There had been an arcanists duel. Then screaming. Her own, echoing in the dark halls. A man, dragging her away. Something about him was familiar—

Mirian shivered, and not from the frigid waters.

She cast a light spell, then gradually expanded her air bubble until it was keeping her dry again. She was glad she'd had the foresight to make sure her spellbook was completely waterproof. The landslide had buried about a quarter of the Gate, but the conduit room was exposed; enough of the debris had been cleared.

There was probably a smarter way to do that, she thought. Hopefully, her actions hadn't caused too much chaos above.

As her air bubble filled, she began to float up. She cast force grapple to drag herself over to the entrance to the conduit room. Her body ached all over, and her Lone Pine stance seemed to be dulling some sort of sharp pain in her joints. She sent a wave of raw soul energy through her body, but that didn't seem to fix whatever was causing the pain. So be it; she would endure.

Mirian moved closer to the conduit room, mind still in turmoil. She tried to recall her mother's face again, but the images slipped from her mind. She tried to remember the house. She could only remember remembering the house. Still, there were cracks in the curse. Perhaps Westerun had thought it would last a lifetime. But now, her soul's currents were far stronger than any of the Deeps necromancers would have expected.

Then, there were the memories of the city. Somehow, the soul fragments of the people who had lived here had lingered for thousands of years. Had another Elder God walked here and blessed this place? And who was the lost God? The Prophets that had found their way to Labyrinth Vaults must have seen Them depicted.

She came to the door of the conduit room. It was nothing like the other two; it was shining steel, with the steel worked into angular forms that in turn were engraved with strange symbols, but not in any language she recognized. The whole room was at an angle, tilted at around thirty degrees. She blinked in.

And immediately began to panic as she accidentally inhaled a breath of water. Her air bubble had been left behind. Quickly, she recast the spells again, lungs burning as her heart pounded. When she felt the air in front of her face, she greedily gulped at it, coughing violently as she did.

When she cast light again, she saw the room was empty. When she blinked, though, one of the Elder creatures was suddenly there. It stared at her with its many eyes. She recognized it. Conductor.

Hello again, she sent. Crystals needed?

NO, it sent back, and she saw images of the crystals that were scattered on the ground. Briefly, her memory flashed back to the man who's memories she'd seen, the one who'd removed the crystals. She realized his skeleton had slid to one of the corners of the room, and the crystals were still piled next to it. She felt a pang of sorrow for the man. He'd sacrificed himself, but there was no history book that had recorded it. How many lives had he saved? What had happened to his daughter?

She swam over and picked up each crystal gingerly, handing them to the Elder creature. Open gate… cause flood? she asked.

There was a pause. Perhaps it was considering if telling her violated some rule. NO. IT WOULD CAUSE TOO MANY PROBLEMS IF FLUIDS TRAVELED FREELY THROUGH THE GATES. EVEN YOUR SIMPLE MIND MUST COMPREHEND THIS, OR THERE'D BE A POWERFUL WIND MOVING THROUGH THE OTHER PAIR. With the word 'fluid' Mirian saw both images of air and water. That was good. If opening the Gate was required to regulate the leylines, it would have also sucked all of Mahatan's drinking water away. The city would be doomed.

The fewer cities she had to doom, the better.

Open multiple Gates?

A pulse of annoyance. NOT POSSIBLE.

Mirian had hoped there would be some way to have them all open at once. It seemed like, mathematically, it should be possible, but what was possible mathematically wasn't always possible physically. Close Palendurio Torrviol Gate.

This time, a pulse of hesitation. Then, Conductor mentally said, THE RULES DO NOT ADEQUATELY COVER THIS CASE.

Mirian sent puzzlement. Don't know rules. Explain rules?

THE FOREMOST AUTHORITY OF THE HUMANS MUST AUTHORIZE—BUT THE SOCIAL HIERARCHIES HAVE SHIFTED. NO CONTINUITY WAS PRESERVED. NO CONSENSUS WAS REACHED. AND WE ARE COMMANDED NOT TO ACT ON WHAT WILL BE UNTIL IT IS. THERE IS NO CONTRADICTION, BUT ALSO NO CLAIM.

The words Mirian heard were perfectly clear, but she couldn't understand what it was saying. She backed away to think. The pact must have been formed under the Viaterria before the Cataclysm. Or was there something before that? Eyeball said opening a gate meant gaining permission from 'your rule-makers.' But now, a Prophet is the highest authority—at least in Baracuel. What if there's disagreement? Not just among the countries, but among the Prophets?

She touched Conductor again. I am, she sent, and pictured the mathematics of the temporal anchor. Highest human authority.

Another pause as the Elder creature considered. AS LONG AS THERE IS NO CHALLENGE.

For now, at least, there wouldn't be. Mirian was, as far as she knew, the only person on Enteria who could use the blink spell.

Conductor vanished briefly, then reappeared a moment later IT IS DONE.

Open Gate Torrviol, she thought. There was a pulse that sent her arcane sense tingling and a rush of water. When she blinked back outside the conduit room, she was at least ready to hold her breath. The sudden crush and cold was still terrifying, but she was at least ready for it. The gate was now open before her, bathing the depths of the oasis with luminosity.

She looked around once more as the air bubble gathered around her head. The ruins had a ghostly look to them. She felt a deep sympathy for the souls that had called this place home so long ago, and the terrible fate they had suffered. This was what had been missing from the dusty history books she had poorly studied, so long ago: a connection to the people.

The light of the gate reached up through the murky waters with ethereal beams. As the air bubble coalesced, she ascended with it, back to Mahatan.