A single pedestal stood in the middle of the elevator. On it, an indent exactly the size of the tablet.
Gale stepped in first, visually checking the corners. Not feeling any watchers, he waved them in.
Ollie and Lily moved in second. Their steps were sluggish compared to their usual as they still recovered from the months of being drained.
"Shit," Kyle muttered. "Feels like we're in a subway bathroom compared to the last one. Fuck this floor and its heat."
"Quit complaining," Clyde stepped in after Kyle. "At least it's not the shit we did back in Panama."
Rachel entered without comment, positioning herself next to Gale but avoiding eye contact. She'd barely said a word in the trek to the elevator.
Ollie stood by the pedestal, steadying himself against the wall. Putting in the tablet into the indent, he tapped twice on the panel and the elevator shuddered, picking up speed until it reached its peak. The windows showed the vast greenery of the agricultural floor.
"Lily, I want you to put a mental sigil on everyone when we get to the next floor," Ollie looked to Lily.
"What for?" Lily leaned by the elevator wall.
"Just in case." Ollie ran a hand through his hair. "Whatever happened back there, it got inside our heads too easily. Probably got us the moment we left the elevator. I don't want to risk that again."
"Fine," Lily said. "But I can only maintain them for about twelve hours before needing to refresh."
"That should be enough." Ollie turned to Gale. "And you, use those spider senses of yours on anything that seems weird."
"Spider senses?" Gale asked.
"Whatever the hell you call it. That thing where you can tell when shit's watching us," Ollie said. "I don't know what it is, but it's saved our asses twice now, so just... try."
"Ok. I'll do my best," Gale said.
Ollie held out his hand toward Gale. "Let me see that orb you took from the console."
Gale materialized the Origin Artifact core onto his right hand and put it on Ollie's hand. Contrary to its baseball size, it was extremely dense at probably around 10kg.
Ollie turned it over in his hands, staring at the patterns. He reached for the tablet, taking it off the pedestal.
"Might fit here," he muttered, trying to press the orb into the circular depression on the back of the tablet.
Nothing happened. He tapped again, multiple times. The baseball sized orb just clanged against the tablet, sounding like glass hitting glass.
"Welp, that didn't do shit. You mind I keep this? Looks like a tech part," Ollie asked.
"Yeah. It's useless to me anyways," Gale said.
The orb dematerialized into Ollie's storage box. "I can probably study this later, maybe make something useful out of it using this place's technology."
A small smile formed at the corner of his lips. "The rich get richer, as they say."
"Oh, hell no," Kyle pushed himself off the wall. "We nearly died back there. If that thing's worth something, we all get a piece."
"Fair's fair," Clyde said. "We split the profits."
Ollie dematerialized the tablet into the storage box as well. "You two want a cut? Fine. But you'll need to do some odd jobs for me."
"Like what?" Kyle asked.
"I'll let you know when I need it." Ollie smirked. "Could be retrieval, could be security, could be playing decoy. Nothing you haven't done before."
The twins exchanged a look.
"How big a cut?" Clyde asked.
"Fifteen percent. Each."
Kyle whistled. "Thirty percent total? You must really want those odd jobs done."
"Take it or leave it," Ollie said.
"We'll take it," the twins said in unison.
Gale glanced at Rachel, who sat by a corner, staring down at the window, lost in her own thoughts. She still hasn't said anything, not even joining the banter of the idiot trio.
"So what's the next section?" Gale asked, turning back to Ollie.
"Tablet said that next sector is called the Core Chamber, whatever that is. Sounds like something straight out of a sci-fi movie," Ollie said.
"Probably something to do with the logical stuff over the sector from what it sounds like," Gale said. There was definitely a Dainv connection in this rift. Core class, Origin Artifact Core, and now Core Chamber. He knew well enough it's basically something about processing based on what Guide had said before.
"Rookie, how do you know that?" Kyle asked.
"Sounds suspicious, rookie." Clyde immediately braced for impact from a spark, but nothing came. "Rage baiting failed. Now I'm bored again."
Gale sighed.
"Everyone rest up. I'm going to meditate before we get to the next level." He glanced at Lily. "You too. We'll need your mental wards at full strength."
"How long until we arrive?" Lily asked.
"About an hour and a half."
The group settled into the elevator. Kyle and Clyde took opposite corners, Clyde sitting with his eyes closed while Kyle fiddled with his dagger.
Rachel stayed by the right wall on the window, arms crossed, legs crossed, gaze fixed on the clouds that fell down as the elevator shot upwards.
Lily and Ollie sat cross-legged in the centre of the elevator, closing their eyes and slowing their breathing. Within minutes, a faint blue haze fell on Lily as a sigil took shape on top of her head. A blue outline formed around Ollie where his rhythmic breath increased and decreased the opacity of the outline.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Gale turned, walked towards Rachel, and sat beside her, cross legged. Her silence bothered him more than he thought. Something was clearly wrong, and he wasn't very sure whether it was right for him to ask.
"What's wrong?" he asked, leaning his shoulder against hers. "You haven't said anything in a while."
Rachel kept her eyes fixed forward. "It's nothing. It's just… a lot of things."
"Sure doesn't seem like nothing."
Gale watched the clouds pass by with her, thinking about literally nothing. Honestly, he didn't even know what to say other than keep asking.
"You want to talk about it?" he asked.
Rachel didn't look at him. Her eyes stayed locked on the view outside. Her mouth kept moving up and down as if wanting to say something. She stopped, and for a whole minute, silence until she turned to him.
"Gale, do you even know why I care about you?" she finally asked softly. "Even though technically to you we've only known each other for six to eight months at most?"
The question caught him off guard. He opened his mouth, then closed it. The truth was, he didn't know. She'd always been there, even back in the Eclipsed when he first saw her under that blue moon. She'd always had his back. There was no reason to overthink it, although he had to admit that he did think a lot about her. Besides, she'd tell him sooner or later anyways. All he had to do was wait.
"I don't know," he said. "But I do know going through extreme circumstances can bond people faster. The Eclipsed was... we survived it together until we didn't."
"Bond," Rachel repeated the word. "Lakeshore West High. Does it ring a bell?"
"That's where I went to high school," Gale said. "But I mostly kept to myself."
Rachel forced a laugh. "The first day of grade nine, you bumped into me in the hallway. The moment I turned to look at you, you flinched and wouldn't look me in the eyes." She paused. "Why?"
Why? Because he was afraid of getting hit, that was why. Shawn would always hit him if he even so much as breathed in his direction. He remembered that day too. The crowded hallway. There was only one person that turned to his direction when he bumped that person's shoulder. Didn't realize that was Rachel.
"I remember that," he said. "That year was the year Shawn and his friends started beating me up more and more. Even looking at him, he'd get mad and just throw a punch at me."
"Grade ten," Rachel said. "We were in English class together. The book we were supposed to read was called Brave New World, an ancient book from over a hundred years ago. It was a book study, and you were placed with me and my best friend. But you never talked during our discussions. Isla even asked if you wanted to join us for lunch."
Grade ten? That was when he carried multiple volumes at a time of a series that had 58 total volumes. He would always wait for recess or lunch to rush to the library, forgetting to eat, just to quickly consume all of the volumes that he had stockpiled.
"I don't even remember being asked," he said. "I was reading this really popular fiction series then. Always had one or two of the volumes with me."
"I started going to the orphanage that year," Rachel said, her voice growing softer. "To donate my excessive lunch money from Grandma. Guess who I found there?" She smiled. "I wanted to say hi, but Mrs. Molly stopped me from going into the dorms."
"I really missed all of those appearances. Haha," Gale said.
Rachel sighed. "We were in multiple classes together, Gale. You probably don't even remember when Shawn lost to me in a boxing match during gym class."
Well, that one he remembered clearly. Everyone was saying Shawn lost to a girl. Arriving back at the orphanage, Shawn's face was bruised up and had that angry look as he stomped towards him in the dining room. The beating Gale received that day was particularly memorable.
"So that's why he beat me up so badly that time. That's good to know," Gale murmured. He almost asked why she hadn't reached out to him more directly but stopped himself. He knew the answer. He would have run away, kept his distance. Hell, he couldn't even remember what her best friend looked like.
"I was scared you'd disappear when the connection to the ring was gone," Rachel said. "Maybe if it wasn't for this ring, we would've all died back there."
Her eyes turned back to the window. "When the connection broke, all my memories of those months flashed before my eyes. Everything. All the things we talked about. But I knew you wouldn't remember any of it. Not the morning conversations, afternoon walks, late-night talks. None of it. There's no point in telling anyone. To everyone else, it was just a couple of days. To me…”
Rachel’s words grew quieter, hoarser as her voice trembled, barely audible even. “To me… it was the same fourth day for 135 days, repeating forever."
"Sorry…" Gale stared at her. "I… I kinda felt like I was losing my mind too. That time you angrily stomped towards me, I couldn't even taste the difference between this rock and that rock anymore. I thought I was going crazy." A pause. "But you're right. I only remember four days, exactly. I don't even know how that must've felt repeating that for over a hundred days."
Rachel laughed, this time not forced. "The way you do feral-like things is a weird superpower."
“You got that right” Kyle chimed in, and immediately a spark flew his way.
"Rachel… we're going to get out of here. I have a hundred percent chance of being in a rift where I got everyone out in one piece," Gale said. "This rift isn't going to be different."
"One out of one rift isn't a good statistic," Rachel said.
"I'm not about to let that statistic fall." Gale paused. "Wait, there's one thing I do remember. There was a bully in high school who told me to write one of her book reports for her. Was that you?"
Rachel sighed, shaking her head. "That wasn't bullying. That was asking for help."
"So we did know each other longer than six months," Gale said. "Just not in the way I imagined. Neat."
"When you're looking down all the time, you're not going to remember faces," Rachel said. "I don't blame you. But how did it never occur to you, even at the beginning of the Eclipsed, when I recognized you despite that demonic helmet and dirt all over your face?"
Gale looked away. "The thought never crossed my mind."
He bit back what he really wanted to say in a gravelly low voice: The predator within never needed to remember humans, hehe. She'd bonk him for sure if he said that out loud.
The elevator shuddered to a stop.
Everyone's heads turned to the elevator doors. Lily's eyes snapped open and whispered inaudible words. A sigil marked itself on everyone's forehead.
"Jeeze, the forehead, seriously?" Kyle asked.
"Want me to take it off?" Lily asked.
"Nope. I'm good. Thank you, lecturer lady," Kyle said, gaining a snicker from Clyde.
"Alright, everyone up. We're about to go into the 3rd round. Eyes peeled. May Najm guide us to the right path and may he lead us to victory in a glorious battle," Ollie said.
"Najm is for adventuring. Pray to Tempus," Clyde said.
"Najm is my god, you heathen." Ollie stood up and took out his tablet from the storage box. "Everyone ready?"
"May Najm protect us." Rachel stood up with a smile, extending her arm to Gale.
Gale took it, standing up. "May Tempus give us great food."
"Rookie, if you don't know the game, don't even try," Kyle said.
Rachel sighed, "Idiot."
"Spidey senses, you're up," Ollie said, pointing to the front of the elevator doors.
Gale took up the front. The doors opened with a hiss, revealing nothing but pitch black beyond. Extending Breath of the Void's tendrils outwards, it touched every surface, feeding him visual and scent information.
It was just one long hallway. However, tendrils caught on to something. Humanoid robots stood beyond a couple of hundred metres out from the elevator door. They weren't moving. They stood there like mannequins or unpowered robots.
Kyle groaned, "Oh, come the fuck on. Not more darkness."
"Anything out there, rookie?" Clyde asked, moving to stand beside Gale at the doors.
"Humanoid robots. They're not moving, but they have ether signatures. A couple of hundred metres out."
Kyle pulled out his pistol. "Great. More robots. That's just what we needed after months of being mind-fucked by an AI."
"It wasn't months for you," Rachel muttered.
"What?" Kyle turned to her.
"Nothing."
Ollie stepped forward, dematerializing the tablet back into the storage box. "Welcome to the Core Chamber, people. Let's see what fresh hell this place has for us."
"Twelve hours," Lily said. "The wards will only last that long."
Gale materialized Weber from the space storage. The sword felt heavier than usual, probably from the drain.
[Essence: 574/1500]
Essence levels were still pretty low.
"Rachel, you're up. Be the candle that you were meant to be. May you light the way," Ollie said.
Rachel stepped in front of Gale, first one stepping outside of the elevator. A tiny ball of light floated in front of her and reached a couple of metres in the air. The tiny ball of light illuminated into a temperatureless inferno, lighting up the whole hallway.
Everyone noticed the walls and even the floor. They all contained the rhomboid patterns and intricate lines that stretched out like a motherboard circuit.
Maybe Gale was right. This might be where all the logic happens within this sector.
At the edge of where the light from Rachel's fireball lit up, a robot stood there, unmoving.
"Well, that's creepy," Kyle said.
"Alright folks. Watch those fuckers. If any of them moves, fuck 'em up," Ollie said firmly. "Move out."