Chapter 121: Chambers of the Lost (1/2)
“Is he going to make it?” Trian asked Ilea who was still healing the demon, the pronoun used giving her more relief than she expected.
‘Maybe I’m more stuck up than I thought… dudes should be able to fuck demons, none of my business… but if I have to travel with that… aw man.’ Ilea thought “Trian am I racist?” she asked in a somewhat worried tone.
“What? Why would you ask that now? I mean you’re healing a demon so I doubt it.” he said when the demon started moving again. A pulse of mind magic flashed through them, images of blood, violence and pain quite prevalent.
“I think he’s fine now. Hey weavy, wake up.” Ilea said and lightly slapped the mind mage, considerate of her higher Strength.
“Have we made it? Made it beyond?” the demon asked, an elation in his voice quite unlike anything they had heard of him before.
“Dunno, we’re definitely in a different place but the metal looks quite similar...” Ilea said, looking to the opening in the room. Her sphere only told her that this structure was bigger than the rhombus they were in before.
“The runes in this room are similar as well...so whatever this is it’s for spacial travel?” he asked, carefully touching some of the runes. “If we could recreate this...”
“Well I hope you sketched down all the runes in the other place...” Ilea said and started walking towards the exit. Stopping, she sighed. “Don’t tell me you want all of these as well...” but of course the man would. If this could be recreated it would mean an advancement in magical travel unprecedented to human kind, at least not the general population. Ilea definitely suspected there to be organizations and countries in Elos hoarding their knowledge. The Taleen alone had something similar to this if her suspicions to what happened to Edwin were true.
‘You’d always have to travel with a tank and a healer...’ she thought. Another somewhat easy job she could make money in should she ever use up her reserves. “I’ll go check it out while you finish the drawing.” she said. The mages didn’t respond to her, completely taken up by the runes in the room, now even more obsessed as they knew what the magic could do. ‘What if it just moves you fifty meters away...’ Ilea thought but quickly dismissed the idea as she came out of the room and into a massive open space, clad in dark gray metal.
The tapping of her steps was the only noise in the complex, the woman looking up and around, lost in an alien facility. ‘Who the hell built this?’ she thought, admiring the architecture and beauty of the whole thing, quite similar to something a modern human from earth would build if all they had was metal. The angles were different as well, this builder preferring diamond and triangle shapes compared to the square ones humans usually built with for efficiency.
Ilea checked out different rooms and halls, finding all sorts of weird machinery and items she didn’t know what to do with. Her identify skill only spat out weird names that helped her just as much as simply looking at the items. She refrained from pushing mana into any of them before Trian and the demon had a look. If anything her expertise with the practice was destructive at best. Perhaps the structure that brought them here would’ve simply exploded if it were her to push in her mana.
‘Maybe healing mana...’ she thought but still didn’t do anything. It would’ve been different had the items looked interesting in the least but they were just more weird forms of metal covered in runes, surely to fulfill some great purpose like making the best smoothies in the galaxy. ‘Maybe...’ she thought and just put everything movable into her necklace, planning to give it to the others as soon as she would go back. “Less walking for everyone...” she murmured to herself while sketching down the layout of her path.
“This place is impressive.” Aki said, Ilea’s buffs coming to life as soon as the voice reached her ears.
“Don’t fucking do that you edgy shit.” she said, releasing the auras again.
“You’re jumpy today, everything alright?”
“Yea, stranded in yet another place I don’t know shit about and this time it’s demons and a weird metal obsessed civilization. I bet we’re underground as well… why wouldn’t we be?” she said, walking to the next room and continuing her pillaging.
“Another place. So it’s true then? You’re not from Elos. I had suspected it. How did you get there then? Are you a secret space mage?” Aki said, making Ilea freeze up.
“Aw I blurted it out. Oh well, I don’t think it matters much at this point. Yea I’m not from Elos.” she said as she spun around a rod of metal marked with runes. “Sadly I’m not some powerful traveler of the realms, just an unlucky student. Or perhaps this all isn’t real and you’re a simulation. Or maybe I’m dreaming, just really really deep.” Ilea commented.
“Or maybe you were supposed to be summoned somewhere else? Or perhaps a demon traded places with you, who knows.” the dagger said. “Do you want to go back?” he asked a while later, two rooms of searching later. They all looked similar, the orange red light coming from the magical lamps covering everything in its hue.
“I don’t know. Maybe? If I can keep my abilities there but I somehow doubt it.” she said.
“Why would you not keep them?”
“I don’t think magic is a thing where I’m from. I didn’t get a class until coming to Elos at least.”
“How does everything work then? Without magic I can’t imagine a functioning world...”
“I’ll tell you all about it someday… let’s go back, I hope they’re done by now.” Ilea said, checking her surroundings and finding nothing but old metal and herself. ‘No traps, no enemies… what is this place?’ she thought and returned the way she had come from.
The mages took another twenty minutes after her return to finish documenting all the runes. Ilea convinced them to inspect the items she had found while actually exploring the place they had found themselves in, instead of the suggested study session in the same room the demon had suggested. She did hold the items in her necklace so there was a certain leverage she had over the others.
“Come on just activate it.” Ilea said after the two mages had looked over a runed rod she had handed them. Trian seemed to be losing his patience as well, not as interested in studying the runes of a likely more mundane tool compared to the teleportation device. He grabbed the rod from the demon who was floating next to them and pushed his mana into the item. The top started glowing immediately and produced heat.
“What the hell is that?” he asked and handed it to the demon.
“Smithing tool maybe?” Aki suggested as the demon put the glowing end on his arm.
“AAAAaahH” the obvious result didn’t surprise Ilea as she just walked over, took the rod from the demon and made it vanish before she healed his wound without any words. The thing at least didn’t look embarrassed but she certainly hoped it felt that way.
The exploration continued as the mages tried out different items left behind by whomever had built or used the place. Most of it looked similar and without Ilea’s sketches she doubted finding the teleportation room again would be a simple task. Some of the halls were massive, the detail in the metalwork very impressive. All of it had the same flair and was built with the same kind of metal, no other materials could be find anywhere, except for the lamps brimming with a dark orange.
Ilea could see into the walls but found nothing but metal. There were small mechanical details inside the lamps but dismantling one revealed a mana crystal and apparently nothing substantial otherwise according to Trian. It was a lamp after all. There hadn’t been a notice regarding a dungeon when they had come here, scratching that possibility.
“Are you sure?” Trian asked and the demon affirmed via his mind magic They were standing in front of a round form, comparable to a big table. Runes were carved into it and the demon had apparently found the control panel for whatever it may be.
“Well activate it, we’ve been walking around for hours, I want something to happen. Even if it’s a trap.” Ilea said. The others had tried all the things they had found so far. While the items were impressive and possibly ground breaking for the respective branches of society they’d be used in, nothing helped them find out more about the place or how to get out. Ilea hoped they weren’t trapped in the facility forever.