Fortress Al-Mir

Arkk stared through the void around him, hesitant to take a single step. The world had shrunk down to the size of a small sphere, upon which only he and Vezta stood. It was about the size of the [HEART], though despite feeling like he was standing at an angle, he didn’t feel like he was about to fall off.

There was nowhere to fall to. No up or down, just the sphere and the void. It was as if he stood on the edge of a dream.

Vezta was looking around just as much as he was, a frown firmly planted on her face.

“Think that was supposed to happen?” he asked, forcing a note of levity into his voice.

Vezta, with her burning yellow eyes, looked at him. She opened her mouth to respond but, before a single sound could come out, lithe fingers emerged from the shadows of the void, large enough to grip the sphere he stood upon with long, violet-colored nails.

A face, as large as a church, loomed out from the void, peering down at the sphere held in the palm of its hand.

Arkk stared up, meeting those violet eyes. He opened his mouth, a cry of fear welling from the back of his throat.

Vezta’s tendrils wrapped around him, looping around his face, his mouth, and the rest of his body, dragging him downward.

For a fleeting moment, Arkk panicked. He feared that Vezta had just attacked him. He didn’t know why she would. They had been working together for months now. He knew her. He had possessed her. They had shared quiet moments and planned strategy together. She wouldn’t just attack him out of the blue.

He forced himself to calm down. Vezta wasn’t trying to break his neck or even restrain him. She was just holding him. Arkk still didn’t know why.

His faith did not go unrewarded. As soon as he ceased struggling, he felt a breath on his ear.

“Do not move or open your eyes. We’re in the presence of the [PANTHEON]. Just looking could have… deleterious effects.”

Arkk’s mouth went dry. They were what? That wasn’t supposed to happen. That was definitely not supposed to happen.

Thinking about it made him start shivering. It was a completely automatic response. He couldn’t help it. And yet, he was fairly certain he had recognized that face that had appeared, despite only seeing an instant of a glimpse.

He had seen it dozens of times. Even just a few minutes ago. One of the statues in the temple room, Xel’atriss, Lock and Key. The patron goddess of barriers, locks, boundaries, and separation… according to Vezta. The only thing missing from reality versus the stone depiction was the door that stood behind her. Unless that had simply been too large to comprehend, he hadn’t seen it.

Arkk wanted to peek again. Just a glimpse to confirm that his memories weren’t inside-out. But for all the start she had given him, he did trust Vezta to know what she was talking about. Peeking would likely not end well for him. Just thinking back to the half-glimpse he had gotten, in which his imagination was likely filling in a vast sea of blanks, had him trembling uncontrollably.

Still, it made sense. Xel’atriss, Lock and Key, held dominion of barriers and boundaries. Their whole ritual had been about knocking down the barrier separating the world from the Underworld.

Why had she shown up? Was this god upset at having mortals intrude upon her domain? Would she crush them in her massive grip or just swallow them whole?

The lack of sight was making him nervous. What was going on? Was Vezta talking to this being? Probably not. Arkk imagined a single hum would shake him to the core. One word would have him reeling. A full sentence would end in his death. Perhaps Vezta was keeping her head down and not looking either. She certainly wasn’t moving. Was this situation as terrifying for her as it was for him?

Arkk moved one arm. Vezta tensed for a moment until his slow movements reassured her that he wasn’t trying to escape her grasp. Once he could bring his hand up to the level of his head, he gently patted the tendril clamped against his mouth.

Vezta hesitated. He could feel the tension in her tendrils. With a second pat, however, she relented. The tendril around his eyes and ears remained in place but the one over his mouth slackened and hung down below his chin. Arkk took in a breath of air and tried to swallow only to find his mouth far, far too dry.

He had his mouth free now. He could speak.

But what to say? What did some nobody mortal have to say to a god?

“Hey there.”

Vezta hissed and promptly clamped her tendril over Arkk’s mouth once again. “What are you doing?”

Arkk couldn’t respond. Not with Vezta holding him ever tighter.

He patted at the tendril around his mouth once again. This time, Vezta was even more hesitant to release him. It took several increasingly insistent pats to get her to peel away from him. Free to speak once more, Arkk cleared his throat and licked his lips.

“Sorry about that. She’s just nervous.”

Entangled so tightly with Vezta, he could feel her indignation. Hadn’t this being been the one to bring her down from the [STARS]? She shouldn’t be that worried, right? Or… had she not actually seen Xel’atriss back whenever that happened? Arkk hadn’t asked. The master of boundaries might have simply opened a door that Vezta then stepped through, never having physically encountered Xel’atriss at all.

There was no response to Arkk’s words. No voice, thankfully, but no other meaningful response either. If Vezta had him blinded and was keeping her own eyes clamped shut, Arkk had to wonder if the being was even still there, standing over and watching them. For all he knew, they were just sitting and huddling to themselves. Surely a member of the [PANTHEON] had better things to do than stare at some mortals.

Or… maybe they didn’t. If the Calamity had severed them from the rest of reality, they might have just been floating around in a dark void with nothing going on up until now. But now, Arkk was just wildly speculating on things he couldn’t know even the most minute details of. An active imagination wasn’t going to get things back to normal.

“We were just trying to break down the boundaries between worlds just enough to reach the Underworld,” Arkk said, hoping he wasn’t insulting the being’s intelligence by explaining. If it so wished, he was beyond sure that he would be rendered into paste with a simple flick of its fingers, never mind whatever other powers Xel’atriss might possess. “Sorry for disturbing you.”

With that apology, something shifted. Not Vezta, who remained utterly still. Neither was it a physical shifting. Xel’atriss hadn’t spoken. Neither had it crushed them.

But knowledge stabbed into the deeper parts of Arkk’s mind anyway. The border between ignorance and knowledge moved. Not much. He had no grand revelations about the nature of life, the universe, or anything. The concepts needling into his mind were concepts of understanding and acknowledgment.

It did make him grimace in a pain not unlike that which he had experienced when exposed to Vezta and her [CONSTRUCTED LANGUAGE] before contracting with the [HEART].

The barrier of knowledge shifted once more, bringing forth a sensation of approval. But also a warning. This ritual they had done was wrong. It did not have the intended consequences. Rather, it had drawn the attention of far more beings than just the Lock and Key. Even at this moment, others were bearing down their gazes upon Fortress Al-Mir. They were unable to act. Most of the [PANTHEON], separated as they were, couldn’t act.

Only Xel’atriss, Lock and Key, lord of barriers, could interact with their ritual to breach boundaries today. But it had been a close thing. A slight variation, a different intention, or even a small change in the cosmology of the universe and Arkk could easily have been staring down the Almighty Glory. For as long as the Almighty Glory would have entertained his presence before crushing him like an insect.

“I… I understand.”

The line in the sand between knowledge and ignorance shifted more toward the side of ignorance. It was almost a playful shove. Like this god was trying to say that he did not understand but that was fine because his puny little mind couldn’t understand.

“Well, thank you for the warning, then.” Arkk wasn’t sure what else to say. “I don’t suppose there is anything you could do to help. We’re… I am in over my head here and really have no idea…”

Arkk trailed off as something else moved. It wasn’t some line between ignorance and knowledge, this time. Instead, he found that he could see. Not with his eyes. Vezta still had her tendrils firmly wrapped around his face. Yet he could still see. It was more like he was using his sense of Fortress Al-Mir or the many minions contracted to him. He saw from an outside perspective, looking down upon…

Xel’atriss, Lock and Key, drifted in the abyss. One hand, fingers splayed out, hovered beneath the small planetoid that Arkk and Vezta occupied. The twisted and warped version of the ritual’s central platform. Her fingernails glowed a cool violet in the void. Following her arm, Arkk found that rippling galaxy of a dress—like a slice of the night’s sky made into fashionable wear. Twin-black locks of surprisingly normal hair dangled down on either side of her chest. The back of her hair was pulled up into an infinitely spiraling bun.

Her violet eyes, half-lidded as she stared down at the planetoid, slowly drifted upward until they met with Arkk’s point of view. Like moons hung in the cosmic expanse of the universe. Holding up her other hand, she plucked a pair of stars from the void. They rotated around one another, spinning faster and faster until the two points of light became one solid ring. She held it up for him to see.

On one side, he could see Fortress Al-Mir. The crystal archway room specifically. Dakka, Olatt’an, and Rekk’ar, along with several other orcs and gorgon, stood at the ready, watching and waiting.

Xel’atriss, Lock and Key, rotated her wrist, showing off the other side of the spinning ring of stars.

Arkk looked out into a world unlike anything he had ever seen. A great, desolate landscape expanded outward, flat and mountainless as far as he could see. It wasn’t too dissimilar to the Cursed Forest except for how vast it was. A river flowed through, black as the night, and in the far distance, great spires of shadow jutted straight up and into the red haze of the sky.

With a casual, almost lazy wave of her fingers, Xel’atriss tossed the ring of stars into the distance. Arkk followed it until it became nothing more than a pinprick of light. Even that vanished after a moment.

Arkk turned back to find the goddess almost reclining. She curled her free hand, folding it so that her chin rested on her knuckles. Maintaining that pose, Xel’atriss stared. She looked so relaxed and calm, unbothered by anything or anyone. He had to wonder if the Calamity was as big of a problem as he had been led to believe. At least for this member of the [Pantheon], it didn’t seem to be the case.

She was one of the few who had a statue at the temple. Along with the known traitors. Arkk had to wonder if the one holding dominion over barriers could have shattered the Calamity at any time if she so chose.

Arkk didn’t get more time to consider. Xel’atriss, Lock and Key, hefted up the planetoid that held him and Vezta. He didn’t feel anything—no movement nor even a gust of sudden wind. Not until she flicked her finger and sent the marble hurtling through the void. That ripped Arkk’s stomach out from under him.

But before he could so much as panic, awareness of the void cut off and awareness of Fortress Al-Mir returned in full. He felt the minions, from the nearby casters to the orcs to the distant Ilya, currently dragging her mother through a room in the Duke’s manor. He could see the hallways and the rooms in the ever-expanding fortress. The beating of the [HEART] thrummed louder than ever in both the walls and his chest.

Arkk sat on the central platform in the temple room, wrapped in Vezta’s tendrils. She still had a hold of his face but within Fortress Al-Mir, he didn’t need eyes to see. The other casters were in varying states of panic. Hale had her eyes squeezed shut, trembling violently. Agnete’s eyes were alight and her teeth clenched. Savren and Zullie weren’t in an outright panic, both simply looked resigned.

The bandits who had joined in were by far the worst, shouting and frantically looking around.

Had everyone seen what Arkk had seen? Or were they still in a panic over being unable to stop the ritual?

Speaking of the ritual, the central platform snuffed out. All the light in the array vanished at once, leaving only the glowstones in the room to provide light. The thrum of magic died off and a distant ringing started up in Arkk’s ears.

Zullie got to her feet in an instant, now smiling at herself. “And that’s it. See, I told you all nothing to worry about. We just had to let the magic run its course and… Arkk? What are you doing?”

Before anything else, Arkk pulled one of the lesser servants from the gold mine and dropped it on the altar. It promptly started eating away at the central component, destroying the ritual circle. Arkk grabbed the two prototypes from the library and dropped them into the vault. He would debate destroying them later.

Only once he was sure that the ritual couldn’t possibly be triggered again did he give Vezta a soft pat on her… herself. She wasn’t at all in a humanoid form at the moment. Her body had reverted to her natural state of an amorphous, oily mass, covered in pulsating eyes and snapping mouths that looked like a larger version of the lesser servants. “I think we’re back,” he said softly. “Are you alright? Can you get up?”

Vezta didn’t respond. She did squirm somewhat. Through the magic of the fortress, Arkk could tell that she was physically okay.

“I can sit here as long as you need. However, the minions are in something of a panic and the archway is working.”

Vezta didn’t peel herself away. If anything, she wound around him a little tighter. “Are you alright after that? You conversed with a being mortals can’t even comprehend.”

“I don’t know if I would call that a conversation,” Arkk started. He trailed off, looking inward. Contemplating.

Something changed in him. He wasn’t being flippant for the sake of being flippant. Nor was he defaulting to his usual methods of charging right in and dealing with the consequences later. Something was different. He couldn’t quite put his finger on what. It was like his perspective had been broadened.

“I think Xel’atriss did something to me. Made me more okay with what happened. When I first saw it, before you pulled me down, I could feel the terrible awe bubbling in the back of my mind. But now? It was an extraordinary situation, to be sure, but I think I’m alright. We’ll see if I don’t wake up screaming from endless nightmares tonight.”

A bright golden eye formed on the tendril that peeled away from Arkk’s face. She wasn’t humanoid at all and yet, he knew her well enough to feel the incredulity in that look.

Forcing a smile, patting her on… whatever again… Arkk slowly disentangled himself and stood.

He looked to Zullie. “We’re not running this ritual again.”

Zullie adjusted her glasses, looking around. “Yeah. We’ll have to figure out what went wrong and try—”

“No. Nothing like this again,” Arkk said, feeling the weight of the warning heavy on his head. “The portal is open but not because this worked as intended. If we do it again… We’ll probably all be dead.”

“What? No. As long as people don’t move,” she said, glaring at the empty spot in the ritual circle. “It’s perfectly safe. We just need—”

“Need nothing. Divine intervention saved us. Nothing more.”

Zullie’s jaw clicked shut. She stared down at the array around her for a long moment before her glare found Savren. Aside from a small huff as she crossed her arms, she didn’t say anything.

“Hale, are you alright?”

The youngest ritualist in the room forced a shaky smile. She pulled herself up on wobbly legs. “That… was a rush,” she said, voice trembling. Her smile faded and she put her hands to her head. “I don’t feel…”

Arkk teleported her straight to him, catching her in his arms before she could fall. “I got you,” he said, holding her tight. “Don’t worry. You’re going to be fine.”

She didn’t respond. One hand grasping his tunic, she leaned against him. Her eyes fluttered closed.

Agnete, stoic as ever, managed to stand without trouble. Savren did as well.

“Escort everyone out, Savren,” Arkk said, looking around the room once more. “Make sure they get a good meal in the…”

Arkk blinked three times as he noticed something new in the room. Another statue. One standing at the wall that previously held no statues. The sixth occupied pedestal in the room held a woman, draped in a shadowy veil that obscured all her features save for the outline of her body. The veil, long and flowing in an unfelt wind, dispersed into ethereal wisps like the trails of smoke from dying embers in a campfire.

Arkk knew without even needing to ask Vezta who this was.

The Cloak of Shadows. Lord of the Underworld.