The voice sounded inhuman. A shadowy limb snatched the amethyst from her palm. One of the silhouettes set in the floor had risen. The outline was blurred, eerily so, contrasting with the lights and images of the sky above and the floor below. The silhouette flicked the gem--with its hands?--resulting in another chime. It had only the vaguest of humanoid shapes and no face… but Roen could sense a smile, somehow, somewhere.
“Do you remember how we came to that place? You were dressed for the occasion in scarlet and white, silver and gold.†The voice sounded as alien as it did before, but there were threads of familiarity--tinged with a trace of sadness, like the frost which silvered the night.
Roen stared at the silhouette shimmering before her. She did not want to hope, but her heart ached to believe. Every part of her denied this possibility, and yet…
“There is little that can prepare you, physically or mentally.†Khadai’s words were recalled with clarity . “It is a place without laws. It means that you may see rain fall towards the ceiling.Those who have died may yet live within. Erase all perceptions and assumptions you possess about our world and how it should work.â€
The gem, tense and contrite, chimed softly.
“Of course I remember,†the paladin answered without hesitation. Her voice sounded raw and hoarse to her ears, but memories lifted her lips into a wistful smile. “You could not wait to get out of your breastplate and the buckles. You never did like formal wear.â€
Roen stepped closer to the figure. There was a wanting, a wish. Her eyes carefully combed over that shadowy silhouette for perhaps even just a glimpse of the memories she had buried but could not forget. Suddenly, she wanted to remember all that was him more than ever.
“We were trying to forget our troubles, wandering about the woods.†She took another step closer. She did not want the shadow to fade away just yet. “Do you remember our dance?â€
The silhouette did not answer, but pointed at the floor. When she glanced down, the shapes reflected on the floor began to stand upright, perpendicular to the mirrored reflection. There were so many. She was surrounded by them. She could not tell who they were, and their shapes were only distinct to her peripheral vision, save for the one holding the amethyst gem.
“This place is from you,†the shadow whispered. “Everything from you.â€
The amethyst fog cleared; the reflections on the floor and the lights in the sky fled. There was silence. Then the sound of her own breath broke the stillness as Roen shuddered at the crushing pressure she felt upon her chest. It all felt so familiar. She could barely see the outline of the silhouette standing before her as it turned the gem in its hand.
“Listen. Watch. Remember. Snuff all light, and we can help.â€
The figure turned the gem in its shadowy appendages again. A beam from somewhere refracted through the jewel, piercing the silhouette in its torso. A gaping hole widened, and the figure vanished without a sound. The amethyst continued to hover in front of her, as Roen frantically looked around the chamber for the being who was standing there just moments before. Just like Khadai, the shadow had disappeared, leaving only the gem behind. She lifted her hand to let it rest against her palm. She could not tell where the lights came from before, but as she angled the amethyst in her hand, she could see the refractions as it absorbed the illumination around it. Could she make the figure come back?
Without warning, Roen found herself expelled from the gallery, back in the nexus of frosted corridors again. There was now a mirror on a wall that was bright--brighter than the sun, brighter than ten suns. It was not there before. The path leading to the diamond bridge had vanished. I may be stuck here. Perhaps forever. The paladin shivered, as the cold realization that she may never leave this place settled upon her like a heavy cloak. She took a sharp breath in and framed her shoulders, looking to the next archway. Thought to purpose. Do not despair now.
Roen stepped into the next corridor that wafted with soft and pearly fog coiling within. Just as the tower seemed from the outside, the light within the chamber was soothing and the air was warm. The surface beneath her feet felt like the ocean, waves of light gently lapping against her boots. The pink sunrise on the distant horizon was calming, perhaps too calming. A single white spire stood alongside the rising dawn, infinite in its distance. The air smelled of salt.
The soft caress of the ocean breeze whispered for her to stay. She breathed in the moist air, and it calmed her senses. When she knelt to run her fingers over the floor, it had a smooth, glassy texture. The sea beneath the glass brightened further when she studied it, hues of emerald, sapphire, and gold glimmering within its depths. Mountains began to rise behind the spire in the distance, flecked with light, slopes veiled with evergreen forest. Mist streamed upwards and droplets of water rose from beneath the glass floor to fall upwards, each one lined in silver.
One foot, then another, she began to walk toward that spire in the vast distance. It looked familiar somehow, and she was somewhat amused how this place seemed to have some kind of an obsession with spires. But as she continued to walk, the vision seemed to clear further, and it looked tranquil. She yearned for its serenity.
Towers, ramps, galleries, and stairs of ice, raised and spun in impossible geometries around her. The greatest architect would weep at such a sight, she mused. No spider could ever weave so complex a web. The tower looked utterly pristine, untouched by mortal existence. She stepped across the glass surface, walking for what felt like countless bells without tiring.
Suddenly the imposing voice shook her from her reverie. CREATED TO FLEE ADVERSITY, it intoned.
Roen squinted to see what looked like reptilian features dotting the tower, though how she could see them she did not know; she was no closer to the tower than she was bells (moons? years? lifetimes?) before. Then her foot reached the outline of the shadow that the tower cast over the glassy ground. The paladin felt the amethyst tremble in her hand. She had nearly forgotten its presence in answering the spire’s call.
“Snuff all light, and we can help.†Those were the words of the shadowed figure.
Roen suddenly held the amethyst up, and it trembled in her hand. When the light of this place glittered against the gem’s cut surface, she saw the reflections in the glass floor beneath her begin to wisp away. The light being emitted from the spires was ravenously devoured by the jewel. It was a torrent, a flood of colors being consumed at a dizzying rate. Her vision flashed with spots and her head spun.
The iridescence died, leaving the paladin standing in darkness. Not complete darkness, no; the amethyst glimmered ever so slightly. It reminded her of the gallery, with a night sky above.
The silhouettes appeared on the floor again. One stood up, gingerly taking the gem from her hand.
“Better,†it said. The voice was still inhuman, but seemed stronger, more distinct than before. The shadows that made up the silhouette were slightly less pale than before, seeming thicker and darker. “Not quite a pleasant experience, that.â€
Roen studied the figure in silence. The words this being spoke the last time, his demeanor, she was so willing to believe it was who she wanted it to be. But she knew, she could just be looking at the product of this place. Of her own thoughts and desires.
Everything you perceive is real, Khadai had said. But how could it be?
“How can you help me?†the paladin asked in a neutral tone, careful to guard her emotions this time. “Why does the light have to be snuffed?†Doubts and confusion swirled with a smallest tinge of hope, that this place could give life to the most impossible of wishes. “What are you? How are you here?â€
“This light banishes all shadows. Such as we are, we cannot come into being,†the silhouette gestured to the surroundings. “We understand this place, this time. We can help through our knowledge.â€
The shadows twisted around her, like children dancing in a circle. The darkness making up their featureless forms flickered. “We are drawn from memory, yet something of the original remains. Moths molded to shape around the candle. Snuff all light. Lessen its hold over us, and we can help.â€
The figures began to melt away, save for one. “Talking in riddles is something of a requirement,†it intoned mournfully, its voice hollow, before it too melted away.
Roen blinked and found herself back in the central room of the tower. There was the mirror on the wall still, and it shined blindingly bright. But the light being emitted from the hallway where the iridescence once shimmered had faded away and died.
With the crimson corridor left unexplored, the paladin noticed one doorway that she had not seen before. Steam puffed and churned from this portal.
The entrance to the hall was flanked by churning cranks. As she entered, she was bathed in a cerulean light, thick as cream. It warmed her skin and filled her mouth with the taste of iron. She could hear the clanking of her boots on a metal catwalk until the hallway expanded to a large room. In front of her was an impossibly huge steel wall, filled with gears of varying shapes and sizes, revolving, spinning, and groaning. Each gear had a pale azure light that flashed between the teeth of the cogs.
ONE OBSESSION REPLACED WITH ANOTHER, that distant voice boomed again.
She did not hesitate this time. She lifted the gem up against the whirling machinery.
The cerulean glow being emitted by the gears swirled. The mechanical wall screamed and creaked as the cogs began to slow. They twitched, as if doing so was against their will. Steam bursted from unseen pipes, whistling once in great tufts before dying. Azure liquid leaked from the wall. The amethyst trembled in her hand, and the liquid swiftly became dead and colorless. The lights from behind the gears died and the mechanisms ceased their eternal churning, at last.
The shadow beings did not appear, save for one. It plucked the amethyst from her hand. “Another piece added,†it commented. “Such as it is. Quite noisy, though.†The silhouette’s form was now deeper, more tangible, and less transparent. It still had no features, and the voice was still alien and hollow, but it did not seem as formless or as faded as it once was.
“These places are from you,†the figure said quietly. “All places. Drawn from you. Gears spinning forever and ever, doing so because they believe they must, even if this mechanism powers nothing. What drove you, as these machines were driven?â€
Sounds of metal upon metal began to scrape against her ears and the wall before her began to fall apart. The sound was intense, painful. Roen clamped her hands to her ears to stymie the cacophony of destruction as the gears slid off, impacting on the metal flooring beneath her feet.
Once all of it fell away, it left her with a single window. Inside, she could see a lone office, with a lamp. A man who must have once been relatively handsome was bent over the desk, feverishly writing something she could not see. He was surrounded by mountains of paper, eyes feverish with the gaze of madness, cheeks and hands gaunt and worn, streaks of gray running through his hair. His hands were bloody with the force with which he gripped his pen. The paper shifted to gears and metal. The gears and metal shifted back to paper. Again and again.
Roen’s breath steamed the glass as she pressed close against the window, her eyes fixated on that man.
“You were willing to kill for him, once, so you thought.†The shadow whispered in her ear. “To have him look at you, acknowledge you, to have him see you as anything other than complicit in beginning his obsession.â€
The silhouette stepped forward through the looking glass into the office. The old man said nothing. The ghostly figure tapped the man, and the man’s form melted into a puddle of azure liquid. “All who obsess become what they obsess over.â€
The shadow crossed over again, dropping the amethyst at her feet. “Know yourself. Challenge the mirror when you do.†The form evaporated, again leaving her in darkness with metal beneath her feet.
One final chamber.
Soon as Roen entered the crimson cavity, she found herself standing ankle-deep in a red river. A gentle white snow--at least, it appeared to be snow--fell around her in an arctic landscape. The sky above was similarly bloody and ominous as the water all around. The very color of this place had made her avoid it early on, but this was the last passage that she had to cross. The paladin found herself unable to move, as the red, viscous liquid lapping at her feet begins to churn and swirl. CRIMES ARE FORGOTTEN; THE SHADOWS REMAIN, the voice intoned.
The liquid at her feet bubbled, and she could see it stir. Rising from the depths were what could only be described as corpses. They were all bleeding from fresh wounds. The paladin dared not raise her eyes to look at any of them, lest she recognized the bodies. Some were short and squat, others were large and burly. One of the standing corpses jingled when it moved. She reflexively glanced up in time to see a gnarled hand, splotches of flesh falling off of it, reaching for her chest.
Roen felt the amethyst shake and tremble; she could feel its glow before she saw it. Time seemed to freeze. The crimson hue tainting the scenery became a muted, dull grey, and she could sense the light draining away.
Instinctively, she withdrew the amethyst, seeing its deep purple take on a gradient of wine red. The silhouettes appeared as the torrent of viscous red liquid crawled up her body, being vacuumed into the amethyst with great force. The shadows stepped forward as if to match the shapes and forms of the standing corpses that she had refused to gaze upon.
“Such as we were,†the inhuman voice murmured, its presence becoming more and more familiar. “We shall not be again.†Roen felt compelled to look to the rest, to stare at the cadavers as they trembled and shook, even as entire chunks sloughed off of their skeletons. “Your fear. Your horror. That your sword ran red when it didn’t need to be. That bodies fell when they could have stood with life. There are few born who are ever gifted with such precision. Complicity, guilt, these things are related. You were ready to charge, until you realised what the sight of blood meant to you.â€
She could feel the gaze of the silhouette boring into her, the layered alien voice speaking softly. “One who fears the world’s workings will always fear themselves most of all. Know yourself, your obsessions, and your fears.â€
“Do you remember how we came to that place? You were dressed for the occasion in scarlet and white, silver and gold.†The voice sounded as alien as it did before, but there were threads of familiarity--tinged with a trace of sadness, like the frost which silvered the night.
Roen stared at the silhouette shimmering before her. She did not want to hope, but her heart ached to believe. Every part of her denied this possibility, and yet…
“There is little that can prepare you, physically or mentally.†Khadai’s words were recalled with clarity . “It is a place without laws. It means that you may see rain fall towards the ceiling.Those who have died may yet live within. Erase all perceptions and assumptions you possess about our world and how it should work.â€
The gem, tense and contrite, chimed softly.
“Of course I remember,†the paladin answered without hesitation. Her voice sounded raw and hoarse to her ears, but memories lifted her lips into a wistful smile. “You could not wait to get out of your breastplate and the buckles. You never did like formal wear.â€
Roen stepped closer to the figure. There was a wanting, a wish. Her eyes carefully combed over that shadowy silhouette for perhaps even just a glimpse of the memories she had buried but could not forget. Suddenly, she wanted to remember all that was him more than ever.
“We were trying to forget our troubles, wandering about the woods.†She took another step closer. She did not want the shadow to fade away just yet. “Do you remember our dance?â€
The silhouette did not answer, but pointed at the floor. When she glanced down, the shapes reflected on the floor began to stand upright, perpendicular to the mirrored reflection. There were so many. She was surrounded by them. She could not tell who they were, and their shapes were only distinct to her peripheral vision, save for the one holding the amethyst gem.
“This place is from you,†the shadow whispered. “Everything from you.â€
The amethyst fog cleared; the reflections on the floor and the lights in the sky fled. There was silence. Then the sound of her own breath broke the stillness as Roen shuddered at the crushing pressure she felt upon her chest. It all felt so familiar. She could barely see the outline of the silhouette standing before her as it turned the gem in its hand.
“Listen. Watch. Remember. Snuff all light, and we can help.â€
The figure turned the gem in its shadowy appendages again. A beam from somewhere refracted through the jewel, piercing the silhouette in its torso. A gaping hole widened, and the figure vanished without a sound. The amethyst continued to hover in front of her, as Roen frantically looked around the chamber for the being who was standing there just moments before. Just like Khadai, the shadow had disappeared, leaving only the gem behind. She lifted her hand to let it rest against her palm. She could not tell where the lights came from before, but as she angled the amethyst in her hand, she could see the refractions as it absorbed the illumination around it. Could she make the figure come back?
Without warning, Roen found herself expelled from the gallery, back in the nexus of frosted corridors again. There was now a mirror on a wall that was bright--brighter than the sun, brighter than ten suns. It was not there before. The path leading to the diamond bridge had vanished. I may be stuck here. Perhaps forever. The paladin shivered, as the cold realization that she may never leave this place settled upon her like a heavy cloak. She took a sharp breath in and framed her shoulders, looking to the next archway. Thought to purpose. Do not despair now.
Roen stepped into the next corridor that wafted with soft and pearly fog coiling within. Just as the tower seemed from the outside, the light within the chamber was soothing and the air was warm. The surface beneath her feet felt like the ocean, waves of light gently lapping against her boots. The pink sunrise on the distant horizon was calming, perhaps too calming. A single white spire stood alongside the rising dawn, infinite in its distance. The air smelled of salt.
The soft caress of the ocean breeze whispered for her to stay. She breathed in the moist air, and it calmed her senses. When she knelt to run her fingers over the floor, it had a smooth, glassy texture. The sea beneath the glass brightened further when she studied it, hues of emerald, sapphire, and gold glimmering within its depths. Mountains began to rise behind the spire in the distance, flecked with light, slopes veiled with evergreen forest. Mist streamed upwards and droplets of water rose from beneath the glass floor to fall upwards, each one lined in silver.
One foot, then another, she began to walk toward that spire in the vast distance. It looked familiar somehow, and she was somewhat amused how this place seemed to have some kind of an obsession with spires. But as she continued to walk, the vision seemed to clear further, and it looked tranquil. She yearned for its serenity.
Towers, ramps, galleries, and stairs of ice, raised and spun in impossible geometries around her. The greatest architect would weep at such a sight, she mused. No spider could ever weave so complex a web. The tower looked utterly pristine, untouched by mortal existence. She stepped across the glass surface, walking for what felt like countless bells without tiring.
Suddenly the imposing voice shook her from her reverie. CREATED TO FLEE ADVERSITY, it intoned.
Roen squinted to see what looked like reptilian features dotting the tower, though how she could see them she did not know; she was no closer to the tower than she was bells (moons? years? lifetimes?) before. Then her foot reached the outline of the shadow that the tower cast over the glassy ground. The paladin felt the amethyst tremble in her hand. She had nearly forgotten its presence in answering the spire’s call.
“Snuff all light, and we can help.†Those were the words of the shadowed figure.
Roen suddenly held the amethyst up, and it trembled in her hand. When the light of this place glittered against the gem’s cut surface, she saw the reflections in the glass floor beneath her begin to wisp away. The light being emitted from the spires was ravenously devoured by the jewel. It was a torrent, a flood of colors being consumed at a dizzying rate. Her vision flashed with spots and her head spun.
The iridescence died, leaving the paladin standing in darkness. Not complete darkness, no; the amethyst glimmered ever so slightly. It reminded her of the gallery, with a night sky above.
The silhouettes appeared on the floor again. One stood up, gingerly taking the gem from her hand.
“Better,†it said. The voice was still inhuman, but seemed stronger, more distinct than before. The shadows that made up the silhouette were slightly less pale than before, seeming thicker and darker. “Not quite a pleasant experience, that.â€
Roen studied the figure in silence. The words this being spoke the last time, his demeanor, she was so willing to believe it was who she wanted it to be. But she knew, she could just be looking at the product of this place. Of her own thoughts and desires.
Everything you perceive is real, Khadai had said. But how could it be?
“How can you help me?†the paladin asked in a neutral tone, careful to guard her emotions this time. “Why does the light have to be snuffed?†Doubts and confusion swirled with a smallest tinge of hope, that this place could give life to the most impossible of wishes. “What are you? How are you here?â€
“This light banishes all shadows. Such as we are, we cannot come into being,†the silhouette gestured to the surroundings. “We understand this place, this time. We can help through our knowledge.â€
The shadows twisted around her, like children dancing in a circle. The darkness making up their featureless forms flickered. “We are drawn from memory, yet something of the original remains. Moths molded to shape around the candle. Snuff all light. Lessen its hold over us, and we can help.â€
The figures began to melt away, save for one. “Talking in riddles is something of a requirement,†it intoned mournfully, its voice hollow, before it too melted away.
Roen blinked and found herself back in the central room of the tower. There was the mirror on the wall still, and it shined blindingly bright. But the light being emitted from the hallway where the iridescence once shimmered had faded away and died.
With the crimson corridor left unexplored, the paladin noticed one doorway that she had not seen before. Steam puffed and churned from this portal.
The entrance to the hall was flanked by churning cranks. As she entered, she was bathed in a cerulean light, thick as cream. It warmed her skin and filled her mouth with the taste of iron. She could hear the clanking of her boots on a metal catwalk until the hallway expanded to a large room. In front of her was an impossibly huge steel wall, filled with gears of varying shapes and sizes, revolving, spinning, and groaning. Each gear had a pale azure light that flashed between the teeth of the cogs.
ONE OBSESSION REPLACED WITH ANOTHER, that distant voice boomed again.
She did not hesitate this time. She lifted the gem up against the whirling machinery.
The cerulean glow being emitted by the gears swirled. The mechanical wall screamed and creaked as the cogs began to slow. They twitched, as if doing so was against their will. Steam bursted from unseen pipes, whistling once in great tufts before dying. Azure liquid leaked from the wall. The amethyst trembled in her hand, and the liquid swiftly became dead and colorless. The lights from behind the gears died and the mechanisms ceased their eternal churning, at last.
The shadow beings did not appear, save for one. It plucked the amethyst from her hand. “Another piece added,†it commented. “Such as it is. Quite noisy, though.†The silhouette’s form was now deeper, more tangible, and less transparent. It still had no features, and the voice was still alien and hollow, but it did not seem as formless or as faded as it once was.
“These places are from you,†the figure said quietly. “All places. Drawn from you. Gears spinning forever and ever, doing so because they believe they must, even if this mechanism powers nothing. What drove you, as these machines were driven?â€
Sounds of metal upon metal began to scrape against her ears and the wall before her began to fall apart. The sound was intense, painful. Roen clamped her hands to her ears to stymie the cacophony of destruction as the gears slid off, impacting on the metal flooring beneath her feet.
Once all of it fell away, it left her with a single window. Inside, she could see a lone office, with a lamp. A man who must have once been relatively handsome was bent over the desk, feverishly writing something she could not see. He was surrounded by mountains of paper, eyes feverish with the gaze of madness, cheeks and hands gaunt and worn, streaks of gray running through his hair. His hands were bloody with the force with which he gripped his pen. The paper shifted to gears and metal. The gears and metal shifted back to paper. Again and again.
Roen’s breath steamed the glass as she pressed close against the window, her eyes fixated on that man.
“You were willing to kill for him, once, so you thought.†The shadow whispered in her ear. “To have him look at you, acknowledge you, to have him see you as anything other than complicit in beginning his obsession.â€
The silhouette stepped forward through the looking glass into the office. The old man said nothing. The ghostly figure tapped the man, and the man’s form melted into a puddle of azure liquid. “All who obsess become what they obsess over.â€
The shadow crossed over again, dropping the amethyst at her feet. “Know yourself. Challenge the mirror when you do.†The form evaporated, again leaving her in darkness with metal beneath her feet.
One final chamber.
Soon as Roen entered the crimson cavity, she found herself standing ankle-deep in a red river. A gentle white snow--at least, it appeared to be snow--fell around her in an arctic landscape. The sky above was similarly bloody and ominous as the water all around. The very color of this place had made her avoid it early on, but this was the last passage that she had to cross. The paladin found herself unable to move, as the red, viscous liquid lapping at her feet begins to churn and swirl. CRIMES ARE FORGOTTEN; THE SHADOWS REMAIN, the voice intoned.
The liquid at her feet bubbled, and she could see it stir. Rising from the depths were what could only be described as corpses. They were all bleeding from fresh wounds. The paladin dared not raise her eyes to look at any of them, lest she recognized the bodies. Some were short and squat, others were large and burly. One of the standing corpses jingled when it moved. She reflexively glanced up in time to see a gnarled hand, splotches of flesh falling off of it, reaching for her chest.
Roen felt the amethyst shake and tremble; she could feel its glow before she saw it. Time seemed to freeze. The crimson hue tainting the scenery became a muted, dull grey, and she could sense the light draining away.
Instinctively, she withdrew the amethyst, seeing its deep purple take on a gradient of wine red. The silhouettes appeared as the torrent of viscous red liquid crawled up her body, being vacuumed into the amethyst with great force. The shadows stepped forward as if to match the shapes and forms of the standing corpses that she had refused to gaze upon.
“Such as we were,†the inhuman voice murmured, its presence becoming more and more familiar. “We shall not be again.†Roen felt compelled to look to the rest, to stare at the cadavers as they trembled and shook, even as entire chunks sloughed off of their skeletons. “Your fear. Your horror. That your sword ran red when it didn’t need to be. That bodies fell when they could have stood with life. There are few born who are ever gifted with such precision. Complicity, guilt, these things are related. You were ready to charge, until you realised what the sight of blood meant to you.â€
She could feel the gaze of the silhouette boring into her, the layered alien voice speaking softly. “One who fears the world’s workings will always fear themselves most of all. Know yourself, your obsessions, and your fears.â€
