Thirty-Five

"How far down have we gone?" Kon asked as they trudged further and further down. A shiver racked his body as the sweat that coated the interior of the rough leathers chilled. The temperature had dropped further and further as they trekked down until it was getting to the point that Kon was cold.

"Kilometer. Maybe two?"

"Are rifts normally this…ummm…big?"

"No. Be wary. This is very abnormal," Diur said, sounding concerned but interested. If Kon's mouth wasn't dry and the ache for water wasn't so pressing, he might have been interested in the strange rift himself.

The faint light of the stairwell began to grow more intense as they went deeper. Pressure built with every breath till it felt like he was swallowing water as he breathed. He hadn't been in a place with such thick energy before. His core was burning where his node was constantly churning through the power he inhaled with every breath.

"Might need to ask Alice about a node to help accumulate this." His sensory node was quiet, the thin trickle of energy he was absorbing was going mostly to his healing node, repairing the muscles he had strained in his flight out of the forest.

"Going down the stairs isn't that hard, but have you thought about how hard it's going to be to go back up?" Kon asked Diur. She snorted and shook her head.

"We're near the end. The energy here is approaching E-Grade density." Kon wished he could measure energy density like they could. It would make his life a lot easier. For the moment all he could figure out was when the energy was either too much or too thin.

"Door," Diur said suddenly and Kon pulled himself out of his mind and looked at the end of the trip. An ache pulsed in his knees and he stretched his legs out, a satisfying pop coming from each of them. Kon peered around Diur and looked at the door she was staring at.

It was made of crystal and covered from top to bottom in infinitesimally small script. Thousands and thousands of rune fragments. Kon's mouth opened in shock and he threw his pack off, digging through the pack and looking for something to record what they had just found.

"This is what makes your people so powerful?" Diur whispered. Kon looked up and Diur had her back to him, her long slender fingers traced over the engraved runes with care.

"No idea. They look like runes that we use," Kon said carefully. For the first time since they had joined forces Kon looked at her as a potential threat. There was a longing in her voice as she spoke of power, as her fingers traced the runes.

"Planets burn if we leak our secrets. Stars snuffed out and solar systems killed." Alice's voice echoed in his head and he decided to keep his mouth shut. He found the holopad that Alice had been playing with and pulled it out. It was unlocked and he scrolled through its functions until he found the video function and turned it on.

The pad was slightly too large to comfortably hold in one hand and he left the rifle propped up against the wall of the stairwell and gently stepped in front of Diur and began to record. He started on the top left corner and went to the right before dropping it down a few inches. The door was slightly taller than him and narrow, allowing him to go through and record all of the runes in only a minute.

Muddy amber crystal absorbed light leaving it looking more opaque than it really was. Swirls twisted in strange and esoteric shapes inside and as Kon went to a knee they changed further and his breath froze in his chest as he looked at it. It was the shape of a man. If a man was dissolved and trickled sideways into a piece of glass and then compressed. Only as he kneeled and looked up did he notice how the shape resembled a person.

"Diur. Come kneel here and look at the swirls. Tell me what it looks like," Kon said as he got up and backed away. Diur looked at him and for a split second she looked suspicious, but then she did as he asked. She stiffened after a moment, hand reaching out to trace the door again, but this time she traced the shape imprisoned in the crystal doorway.

"This was a person. I think," Diur added the last part with a flick of her head. Kon had switched functions on the pad and was taking pictures of the door, trying to ensure he had plenty of evidence and multiple angles of everything. Anxiety pulsed though him that he'd screw it up and not be able to salvage any of this information. A fantasy of being the herald of a new wave of innovative runes rushed through his mind as he snapped hundreds of pictures as fast as he could.

Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

"I'm going to break it down. Are you done?" Diur said after a few minutes. She had searched around the edge of the door but hadn't been able to find a way to force it open. Kon opened his mouth to protest, but closed it a moment later. He wanted to see what lay beyond the door and his imagination was filled with more treasures to be uncovered. He nodded and stepped back.

Over the last hour they had descended, especially as the energy had thickened, Diur had regained most of her strength. She stood straight and ready as she looked at the block of crystal. She took a deep breath and sank into a parallel squat position. Her fist formed slowly, each finger stretched out and then closed one by one. Her aura lit her arm, but only her arm. It was the first time Kon could remember seeing her focus her aura on only one part of her body.

She twisted back and Kon took a few rapid steps back and then spun around and clutched the pad to his chest, back now facing the door. The thought of shrapnel riddling the vulnerable holopad terrified him. The tough leathers should be able to prevent anything from piercing him and he ducked his chin to his chest and covered the nape of his neck with his spare arm.

Behind him he heard Diur exhale and then a mighty CRACK! Kon jumped and froze and then turned slowly when he wasn't pelted by a thousand pieces of crystal. The door was nothing more than splinters across the ground. Diur was limp, shoulders and arms drooping as she took in huge, gasping breaths. Sweat had beaded across her hairline and ran down and across her face.

Kon snatched the laser rifle and put it to his shoulder and launched himself through the doorway. It was like wading into a pool. Energy was pouring out of the room now that the door was shattered. His skin prickled and his leather seemed to grow warm as he took his first breath in and cried out in surprise as energy scoured his throat. He coughed once and then his senses began to grow sharper as his nodes began to do their work.

Gloom shrank and grew light as he looked into the corners and around. There was nothing in the room except a basin sitting in the middle of the room. Kon took a few careful steps to it, but Diur blew by him as she nearly ran to peer at the basin. Her excitement was easy to discern as she perched above the basin.

Kon walked a bit more cautiously to the basin before he peered into the bowl. It was just water. A pool of silvery water that rippled with hidden currents as Diur tried not to hyperventilate next to him.

"What is this?" Kon whispered. Standing next to the basin was painful, the pressure exerted on him was so extreme. He took short, shallow breaths and gritted his teeth. With every moment more and more power filled him and increased his senses which in turn made it more painful.

"It's a treasure. A hidden one. I thought the rift was too big for what the beasts showed. This is powering the rift and strengthening the area, but the door was keeping the power mainly contained to this building. The rift beasts couldn't grow off the power here, but it enlarged the realm. At least, that's what I think." Diur spoke in short quick bursts as greed filled her eyes. She was hovering only inches above the pool, eyes wide as saucers.

"It's E-Grade?" Kon asked. The sudden thirst in his chest was much different now than the one he had been experiencing earlier. He swallowed hard as he stared at the shimmering liquid.

"Low E-Grade. I think…I think I could consume this and survive," Diur said. It sounded like she was trying to convince herself. Kon licked his lips and leaned a bit closer. Diur's arm shot out and prevented him from getting closer.

"I know you can absorb energy well. Better than you should. But treasures are more dense than normal cores. Don't try this," Diur half ordered, half pleaded. Kon nodded his head woodenly and backed up a few steps as the UImna woman leaned over and took a long, slurping, drink. A groan of pain escaped her but she reached in with one hand and started to suck down the water while shoveling her hand close to her mouth to try to force more in.

It didn't take long. Diur groaned and staggered back, her aura beginning to explode out of her. It only added to the pressure in the room and Kon started to look to get out. Diur waved him away and went to the corner of the room, her aura already starting to retract. She folded her legs and sat down, placed her sheathed sword across her knees, and started to breathe in a pattern.

"I can feel the energy shifting as she breathes." Kon realized his senses were growing stronger as the faint fluctuations in energy were easy to pick out. After a minute or two she had reined in all of her strength and was just quietly absorbing the power through her ritualized mediation. Kon left her to it as he stalked over to the basin and looked down.

The basin was nearly empty, a small amount of the liquid sat in the deepest part of the bowl. He could feel the power in that mouthful of liquid. He could also feel the thirst. Both dehydration and the hunger for more strength. Only hours ago that snake had robbed him of his freewill. Infected him with a fear that had driven him mad and made him act as some base animal. It hurt. It hurt being weak and looked down on. The person who had to be protected to the point the others got hurt.

As he looked at the liquid it changed and he saw a hallway. Saw Alice Roose's arm hit the ground as she stood between him and death. The feeling of weakness grew and grew until it felt like he was drowning as he stared at the small pool of water.

"Oh this is so dumb," Kon whispered as he leaned over and slurped up the small amount of water left at the bottom. He knew instantly that he made a mistake. Fire burned his lips, mouth, tongue, throat. Even his teeth burned. A scream died in his chest as his muscles spasmed and he couldn't move. A line of fire carved its way through his body, from mouth to gullet. It hit his stomach and for one horrifying second, his node didn't react. It sat there, a monstrous ball of energy pulsing with power.

Then the node fired to life and Kon would have sighed with relief if he could have. The world darkened and changed and some distant part recognized he had fallen and was starting to lose consciousness. Darkness claimed him, but even that didn't save him from the burning pain.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.