Music for today:
The Last Funeral
https://youtu.be/Giy_HAKLVs4
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Chapter 497: Curiosity vs. Necessity
Mid Afternoon - Late Summer : Year 39 : Poseidon, Draconic Continent
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-What if.. it was to hide it from me..?- Nothing had ever gnawed at me quite like that question.
-What if the existence of this cavern and the events that brought its collapse were just to.. bury it..? To keep me from finding it..?- Looking into the rock, the atmosphere of the entire cavern shifted—the noises of the wildlife, sounds of rustling leaves, and rippling flows of water all ceasing as if nature itself started holding its breath.
As if the world was waiting for permission to move beneath the spread of my wings. *WOOOOM*
Churning some divinity as I siphoned mana from my reserve, sound warped, muffled, and distorted, until.. silence...
...Silence that wasn't merely from noise not reaching your ears.
Opening his mouth to speak, only for his body to refuse his mind, Reon's look of caution rapidly warped with horror.
It wasn't just his voice... For a breath, it was as if time itself hitched—stuttered—leaving just a spine chilling awareness to fill your mind.
But I caught myself quickly. *Woom* Easing my tension as I relaxed my aura and let the world resume.
Though... "W..What the hell was that for..?" The world waited for Hera's voice to break the silence before moving once more. "What did you find..?"
With the return of nature's movement, I shook my head and rustled my wing as if passing a chill, but I couldn't find ease so easily. "I can't be certain..." My voice came out heavy, yet restrained—my eyes darting across the ground without focus or attention for some time. "The channel's collapse.. doesn't seem right."
"W..what do you-" Abruptly jolting as my eyes snapped to him, Reon's eyes went wide with instinct.
But my gaze didn't linger long, "The obsidian layers are.. too defined for the channel to collapse from just the outer layer giving way because of the vortex."
Seeing me trying to confirm, his tension slowly started easing as well. "W..Well, yes, but obsidian is quite fragile. A large slab breaking off of one layer could most definitely send cracks through an inner layer."
"But that's only true for a layer or two from the outside."
"Y-Yes, exactly-"
"There are eight."
Silence caught his tongue instantly.
"Plus, the inner layers may as well be metal with how strengthened they are." They were practically a mid-grade mythril. "Not only would the channel have not collapsed from losing a couple outer layers, the cracks in each are completely uniform." Implying rather than a spread of cracks that travelled through every layer from a single outer source, each was deliberately shattered with a separate use of force that matched the material. -It's just too.. intentional...-
But while I wanted to excavate it for a better look.. that was something far easier said than done. -I can get my aura around it, and the ambient mana isn't too dense.- But the rock itself was so reinforced with mana that dismantling it in a safe and controlled manner was going to be a major ordeal.
So much so.. that I was hesitant... "Were there any documents, drawings, or carvings you've found mentioning a lower chamber?"
Reon was quick to give a reserved nod. "I'm.. not certain it was ever actually accessible, but as you might see in the steady slope of the lake here, it sank in when the upper channel collapsed. It was a place they called the 'vein', and while this is mostly an educated guess, it was likely only connected to the deeper reach of the burial aquifer."
-Wait...- "So, was it not directly connected to the upper chamber?"
He immediately shook his head with a firm, "No. It was at least a kilometer, if not two below this chamber."
-What..?- Looking back into the rock, my breathing turned heavy with stress. -That would mean there shouldn't be any rubble beneath the slope of the lake...- And yet when I was using my space mana to look a moment ago.. there was a major shift in the rubble as if coming from more of the upper sections of the channel. -That would imply there is a steep drop off in the lake bottom there… Something like.. a passage…-
But I wanted to avoid jumping to the conclusion that thought painted at all costs… -It could just be something deeper collapsing, or…- "Did the lower chamber have any sort of major connection with the culture here like the aquifer? Like a reason someone could try and dig down to it?"
Slowly lifting his head while trying to rest his wings into his side, he spoke with a faint reservation. "I.. don't know enough to tell you... I could assume a connection between the dragons swimming into the burial aquifer and the attempt to reach that chamber and say yes, but.. that's a stretch... My guess was that it was a reincarnation center or perhaps a source of power, similar to the Tree of Prayer, but the evidence that it was actually even below this chamber is anecdotal at best."
My eyes still widened with a mix of realization and anxiety though. "Actually.. yeah..." Recalling the bodies that littered the canopy of the Tree of Prayer.. the connection was eerie.
"The most damning thing I could find was the similarity between the word they used for the 'vein' and the old written symbol for the Tree of Prayer." He quickly began carving a series of symbols into the ground as my eyes followed, "I only call it a vein because it has references to 'blood' and 'flow' in this city's language."
Seeing what he meant, my gaze instantly thinned with a squint. -Right, so the 'vein' is likely just a supply of mana from Delphi's core, similar to how it was originally at the Tree of Prayer, but...- That was something I only knew to form when there was something blocking the normal flow of mana to surface. Something like Jormungandr, me, or.. something else entirely...
But that only made my theories step further in the direction I dreaded the thought of…
-Maybe.. I just need to see how deep the rubble goes...- To see if the sinkhole I was seeing was merely a secondary collapse, attempted entrance to the lower chamber.. or an exit from it...
"Hoooh…" Something that, to verify, -Requires me to get rid of everything above it...-
Looking up the massive slope of boulders, numbers started flowing—weight, density, uniformity.. all to figure out a way to reach the center. -Do I tunnel, or...- "Do I remove it all..."
It was an insane task, even for me.
But thankfully, I didn't have to shoulder it myself.
"Do you think you can?" Following my gaze toward the ceiling, Hera spoke with a similarly thought-burdened tone.
"Absolutely," I spoke confidently, "I'm only unsure about how gently I can do it."
Reon, while dumbfounded at our casual suggestion and discussion of it, was quick to step in though. "I-If you clear the rubble from the top of the mountain—from the caldera—it would risk collapse in this chamber. Even slight shifts in how the weight is distributed could sink the entire place."
It was a fair warning, "Right," But it wasn't enough to move my eyes off the column of rock. "It's why I don't plan to come from the top."
"W-What?!" His tension multiplied in a blink.
"Hera, do you think you could help me manage the distribution of weight, and shifts within the rock above me if I held it up?"
Slowly growing more calculative, her prior discomfort started vanishing into a fog of thought. "We.. would have to do it in sections. I can't get my aura far into the upper channel, or into the rock closer to the water."
-Hm...- "So.. a hundred meters off the water, to the ceiling?"
She gave a slow nod after a moment of silence. "Yeah."
Staring at us like we were a couple of psycos, Reon instinctively backed up, but.. chose not to stop us immediately.
And I took that as the green light.
Looking over, I quickly pulled his eyes into mine. "You think you can watch over us a bit?"
"N-No?!" He blurted the word like it was insane to even suggest. "The column is over a dozen kilometers wide, how could I watch over it?"
"Just stand far away, and if you see something shift, or have any guidance, yell at me."
His eyelid twitched with a breath of disbelief before he looked up the side of the rubble himself, and mumbled... "A..Alright.. I guess... I just want it said that this seems.. like a bad idea..."
"I know." I spoke somewhat bluntly—readying so much mana that the air around me darkened and sparkled. "The passage will need to be opened eventually anyway, so.. why not now? Plus, who knows what kind of artifacts are buried in here."
His attention instantly perked with an almost embarrassed reservation. "R..Right… Just.. be careful... If things slip and collapse, it might just bring the whole cavern down on our heads." He didn't want to say it directly, but he was telling me he wouldn't survive the collapse like Hera and I.
Though, I had no intention of letting that happen.
*FLASH* Quickly taking on her full size form with a bright flash, Hera carefully spread and stretched her wings before moving her mana—supplementing the aura she'd soon expend—while Reon flew off and perched in one of the sanded columns, nervous, but focused.
"Alright, you ready?"
*Crrackle* Digging her claws into the cracking surface of the boulder we stood on, her weight multiplied with the grip of her aura—her wings slowly flaring like the heads of hydraulic press before stopping as a faint, resonant hum filled the air. "Go for it."
Turning away, my wings flared in a similar manner. "Start slow?"
She was quick to nod.
And with the signal, space bent, and weight shifted. *CRRRRRRRRUNCHHH*
The sound of rock churning, grinding, and shifting was truly spine chilling in that moment, but after boring to the center of the column, taking note of the shifting mana levels in the rock as I walked the tunnel, I grew used to it. "Hooh..."
All I had to do was trust Hera to cushion my mistakes.. and hold a mountain above my head like a draconic Atlas... -I really hope Hera is comfortable because.. I'm not sure how steady this will be...-
Looking at the ceiling of my passage with my back pressed into the ceiling and wings spread across it, I spread my space mana into a vast plane—a wide mat—and braced.
From there.. all it took was a twist... *Fwip* And the weight would move to me. *HWOOM-TIIINK*
The metallic rock beneath my paws shattered almost instantly. "W-WOOH!" The weight of the column was everything but even, and like a powerlifter with his feet not placed properly, I wobbled.
Forcing Hera to stabilize it in a focused trance.
However.. with a few breaths, lifting the entire plane supporting the column just enough to slip mana into, I fixed it, and in one swift motion, the entire hundred-meter layer between my feet and the plane started churning around me. *CRRRRRUMBLE*
It was going to be a long process grinding it all down, but... -I've got it now...-
It was just a matter of time.
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