74 Corrupted Ruin (2/2)

Other houses were disfigured, stretched into wild shapes, like some nightmare given life. The pleasant sound of gems buzzing and water flowing took on an eerie tone because of this. It contrasted the ominous, empty buildings, like opera music blaring during a gory murder. The dissonance unnerved me, but it did worse to Althea. A bead of sweat fell from Althea's brow.

I wouldn't let a chill running up my spine stop me though, so I paced forward into the unknown. As I neared the city, I found bridges and walkways sprawled across the village. Using them, I passed a river before nearing the closest building. I glanced into the building, no doors or windows on it. Like the other rundown ruins, it was just plain rock with walls and a roof. You could hardly call them houses really.

Within the near empty buildings, markings and runes were etched into the walls, roof, and floors. While somewhat like the runic language of magic, these letters grated me more. They didn't seem smooth and easy to understand. Instead, the chaotic inscriptions felt beyond me. It was like staring at complex, mathematical algorithms. It all just jumbled together.

Intent on discovering what they did, I stepped into one of the buildings. The difference was palpable. It wasn’t like stepping into a room with enchantments or effects. No, it was like stepping into a different eldritch rift. The air surrounding me decompressed as the air pressure lightened. My feet lightened. Hell, the air lightened. Inside this tiny ass building, gravity was different. I waved Althea over,

“You got to try this.”

She glanced around, looking nervous, “I don’t know Daniel. This seems dangerous.”

I rolled my eyes, “Everything here is dangerous. Might as well have some fun while we’re at it.”

She pursed her lips, walking up to the doorway. She glanced towards one of the beams of light, “It’s pretty.”

I walked over and pulled her by the hand into the room. She breathed in, gasping at the sudden shift. She looked around,

“How….” She turned to me, “What in Schema’s name is going on?”

I shrugged, “Don’t know, but it’s cool, isn’t it?”

She nodded, a wide grin on her lips. I walked over towards a square patch of the wall covered in runes. Glancing closer, they seemed familiar. I couldn’t pin the similarity down though. I studied them while Althea hopped around, toying around with the shift in basic physics. I snapped my fingers,

“None of the letters are the same. On them are two different sets of layering, one for the curvature of the letter and another for the indentation…These are like Baldag-Ruhl’s runes, the ones he used to tear open dimensions.”

Althea turned to me, giggling as she moved her hand in and out of the building, “So what?”

I narrowed my eyes, “So that means these runes are causing the crazy shift we’re feeling.”

She turned to me, “Really? Those runes are doing all that?”

I nodded, “If you think about it, the runes for magic can cause massive changes in how something works. Who’s to say there isn’t a set of runes for something, uh…” I scratched my head, “Something weird like this.”

She frowned, “Want to explore the other buildings?”

I stood up, turning to her, “Hell yeah.”

We paced out of the room, gravity pulling harder once we left. We walked towards the next building over. Within it, something even odder happened. Time slowed. The sensation was strange and distant. All of the sudden, my thoughts went way faster than my movement. It gave a sort of trapping sensation, like I didn’t have control of my body anymore.

After glancing at the runes in that room for a bit, I turned to Althea behind me, “What do you think?”

As I spoke, my voice sounded much deeper. Althea busted out into laughter, but her voice deepened as well. I cracked up too, laughing my ass off at her gorilla voice.

I clapped my hands together, deepening my voice, “I am the evil lord Baldowah.”

The ludicrous voice made a nice combo with my waving fingers.

“Beware, little girl. I’ll destroy everything, even Torix’s bad habit of overly elaborate explanations!”

We laughed for a while before getting out of the room. From there, we explored many rooms. Some of them were fun and interesting. Some of them contorted reality a bit too much for Althea's liking. For some reason, these places didn’t affect me, but they sent Althea reeling, like some drug induced stupor. Whenever I concentrated at the runes within these faulty areas, subtle inconsistencies formed.

I still couldn’t quite get it, but the runes felt off compared with the other, more stable room's runes. The lines of them were too smooth, not structured enough. That lack of structure bled into the runes effects. After interrogating Althea about it, she explained that in some rooms the gravity and time shifts were consistent throughout. The rooms with messed up runes had crazy fluctuations from one part of the room to the next. It made the whole experience nauseating for her.

Unlike her, the runes didn’t affect me unless they were pristine and perfect. My guess was that it stemmed form my immunity to corruption. The messed up runes corrupted the area. Flawless runes changed the area. It was like the runes were code for a computer. If you messed up even the smallest thing, you'd get all kinds of errors. Due to my immunity to corruption, the code I was made of wouldn't process those errors. I ignored them entirely.

I got the immunity to corruption a long time ago though, even before getting my armor. Considering Baldag-Ruhl made the armor with these runes, it affecting me meant this armor was perfect. Even though the incantation was massive, he made no mistakes. That bug man was smart as fuck apparently.

Those thoughts tumbled in my brain as we explored the rest of the ruins. Most of the buildings were messed up, but Althea still had a lot of fun despite that. She lowered her guard for a change, enjoying unique sensation each room offered. I couldn’t blame her. It reminded me of going to a carnival and looking through a house of mirrors. Odd and strange, but a little bit captivating nonetheless.

Once we finished moving through the rooms, something like night time came through the room. The beams of light waned, and the orange lamps dimmed. The beams of light lessened. She and I enjoyed a dinner together, each of us chatting about the ridiculous rooms and new world. We ended the conversation when Althea Yawned.

Once she was asleep, I kept guard. I’m sure it made her feel better about the whole being in a different world thing. Once she soundly slept, I went into one of the corrupted rooms and studied the runes. So far, I only studied the perfect runes of Baldag-Ruhl in detail. While they gave a good idea of the finished product, I couldn’t tell what got them there. It was like looking at a finished building. I couldn't tell how it was made from start to finish, just like I couldn’t see how the perfect runes were created.

The messed up runes, however, were full of holes to see into. With that in mind, I found two rooms with similar enchantments, one perfect and the other corrupted. They both warped gravity, but one of them, according to Althea, felt like walking on hills even on the flat ground. The gravity was that inconsistent. These two rooms were the base of my learning.

I took pictures of each room with my obelisk. After that, I analyzed the differences in the languages. I went back and forth between each of the rooms, deciphering what I could. After four hours of the searching for the peculiarities of each room, I made my breakthrough. I discovered a key fact about their similarities.

There were none.

I mean no exact similarities between the two. Some of the symbols were almost identical, but a few notches made a decisive difference. Anytime I attempted replicating them, all I got were duds. After another two hours, I gained a bit of understanding about them.

It seemed like two similar codes, just interpreted differently. One person was giving their take on the language, and the other a different take entirely. That meant none of the runes worked unless you wrote them through the same perspective as the person who wrote it. In order for the runes to work, they needed a consistent way of looking at the world. Otherwise, the inconsistent and incomplete world view made inconsistent and incomplete runes.

It made some sense. Magic runes required mana to fuel their enchantments. They structured the use of magic, giving it a specific purpose and form. These runes didn't bend magic. They seemed to bend the very fabric of reality, allowing for insane creations like these rooms. Someone would need a solid, fleshed out understanding of reality before they could tamper with it.

Since most of these runes lacked that, they resulted in unfinished incantations. Not only did the runes have to be accurate and precise, they needed a concrete view behind them. It was like visualizing a building before making it. I needed to have something in mind before I went off and made a building. Otherwise, the building would fail in a spectacular fashion. These runes mirrored that.

For me, I considered this realization a breakthrough. So far, copying and repetition failed as learning methods. Instead, I would try to get an idea of the runes by carving out my own runes. I would use these other sets as references, but I wouldn’t copy them anymore.

That’s what I did for the rest of the night. Carve, carve, then carve more, I found an empty spot of wall and etched until my hand should have fallen the fuck off. Each time, I tried to make the runes echo my own thoughts and beliefs more. These eldritch runes would allow it. The magic runes allowed echoes to form of memories and thoughts. With the eldritch runes, I could make the memories and thoughts real.

At least that was the working theory. As consumed as I was with the process, I didn’t even notice Althea sneaking up on me. When she slapped her hand on my shoulder, I flinched.

She giggled a bit, “What are you doing?”

I turned to her, then back to my runes, “Trying to learn the runes better.”

She raised an eyebrow, “Looks more like you’re trying to imitate a crazy person.”

I cupped my chin, “Maybe that would work. I can’t tell right now.”

She took a few paces back, “Aren’t you supposed to be learning gravity magic?”

I facepalmed, “Ahh, yeah, I am. Fuck.” I glanced around, “What about doing the training here? We don’t have any extra food, but we have shelter and maybe water further down the line. Seems good enough.”

She shrugged, “Seems pretty decent.” She glanced outside for a second, “Perfect actually.”

A grin slid up her lips, so I replied, “How so?”

She sprouted wings before flapping towards one of the exits, “I have to learn stealth. If I could fool the sandworms, then maybe I’ll get a unique skill and finish my mythical one.”

I nodded, “Having houses with different gravities is perfect for me too. Makes feeling the difference between gravities simple. We’ll set up shop here then. I have about three month’s worth of food. You?”

She landed on one of the crevices, her voice echoing through the cavern, “About two months. We should have about three if we can, I don’t know, filter the water or something.”

I already had a perk making me immune to disease, so we probably had at least 4 months total. I nodded before heading back up to the gravity houses. That’s when I set a schedule. During the mornings, I’d practice feeling gravity. During the evenings, I’d practice the runes. As I reached inside the house, I grit my teeth and clenched my teeth. I was in this for the long haul.

It was time to dig deep.