The liquid was cool, though not in the way that would cause a chill. It had a delicate, almost reinvigorating sensation as it pressed Nero’s body with a gentle pressure - as if he was being hugged by the liquid, instead of descending into its depths. He could not help but feel as if he was being welcomed home.
It was a nice distraction from the fire that was slowly beginning to burn in his chest. The fire was not the blue, glacial flame that he was so familiar with. Instead, it was red hot with an intensity Nero was entirely unfamiliar with. Fortunately, Nero was disciplined enough that he took control of even this unfamiliar flame, keeping it contained and preventing it from growing. All he had to do was not stare at Vanessa directly.
Despite the foreign sense of distraction, Nero did not lower his vigilance, studying the descending corridor. Going by their surroundings, it was almost impossible to believe that they had come from an underground cave, for in front of him was a procession of stone steps, slipping deeper into a muted darkness, etched with the most intricate and detailed carvings on the walls and ceilings.
It was a mere path, leading to some unknown destination, and yet it told a magnificent story of an ancient undertaking. Someone had to have built this channel, just as someone had left behind the mausoleums up above, and this would not have been a quick and devotional work.
As Nero ran his fingers over the engravings, feeling the softness and smoothness of the grooves, he could sense the meticulousness required to carve out each step.
Naturally, there was the possibility that this entire corridor, maybe even the entire underground structure, had been created through the use of aether, and someone as powerful, or maybe even more powerful than a Sage.
Yet his gut instincts said otherwise. There was too much emotion, too much devotion in the endless, swirling designs on the walls. There were moments where the abstract lines seemed to shift into clarity, capturing the likeness of a roaring torrent of flames, now etched in stone. The pattern seemed almost like a memory that the artist wanted to never forget, and so he laid it into stone.
Vanessa seemed less enamored by the beauty of their path than Nero, but even she took a moment to admire its beauty. It was as if, instead of heading deeper into a corridor, they were descending into a trapped fragment of ancient history.
Something flashed in her eyes as she recalled the countless documents she had read about the past. She knew more than Nero, but even she didn’t know everything. After all, their records were fragmented.
She waved her hand, attracting Nero’s attention, before signaling him to pick up the pace. One reason they had been progressing slowly was to watch out for any underground dangers, and there didn’t seem to be any - for now.
The path did not continue endlessly, and eventually opened into a rectangular chamber that, once upon a time, must have been something akin to a waiting room or lobby. There were stone pillars on the sides of the room, decorated with a snake spiraling up its length. Benches and small chairs made of stone lined the walls, behind which elaborate mosaics of powerful beasts adding to the regal ambience. A chandelier, made of some grey metal and crystal, hung right in the center of the chamber, preserved perfectly, with only the absence of candles marking it as unusable.
There were also three doors present in the chamber, one right opposite to where Nero and Vanessa had entered from, and one on either side, making it so that the rectangular chamber had one door on each of its four walls.
All in all, Nero could imagine that this room must have seen a lot of traffic back in the day - whenever that was - though the thing that attracted his and Vanessa’s attention the most was neither the elaborate decor nor the still apparent utility of the room. Instead, it was an entirely out of place, massive crystal right in the center of the room that caught their eye.
The crystal was absolutely massive, with a base of around 2.5 meters (8 feet) and a height of nearly 4 meters (14 feet). It had the general shape of a teardrop, with a larger base that eventually thinned out as it went further up, though it lacked any smoothness at all. Instead, it seemed like the crystal had grown out of the ground, slow, deliberate, and unyielding.
Within the crystal, veins of some silver metal, shimmering with aether, could be seen spiraling within, until eventually they touched the edge of the crystal, and escaped their prison and into the liquid.
Vanessa studied the crystal with visible excitement, and then raised her thumb, indicating that she wanted to talk. Nero activated Luminalink, pulling her into his illusionscape so that they could talk.
"It will take me a few minutes to prepare for the purification," Vanessa said, her impatience seething in her voice. "Once everything is ready, you will have to expose your blood to the Vitracil - the silver ore within the crystal. The amount of Vitracil is limited, as you can see, so once it is used up, we’ll be done here and we can return. Of course, if you’re hesitant or doubtful about the effects, you can wait to see how it affects me first - but don’t say I didn’t warn you, this is not the kind of stuff you can find again and again. I won’t hesitate in using it, so if you end up getting less, you can only blame yourself."
Nero raised an eyebrow, but didn’t comment on her eagerness.
"I’ll follow your lead," he simply said.
Vanessa nodded, as if that was exactly how things should be. Yet instead of asking him to dismiss the illusion, she hesitated, a doubtful expression painting her face.
"What is it?" he asked, when she didn’t speak up on her own.
"I don’t know if we’ll have time to talk after the purification, so there are some things I want to tell you. You... deserve an explanation. Yet we shouldn’t waste too much time down here, so I was wondering just what to say."
Though they were underground, suffering the weight of the clear liquid, surrounded by an ancient silence that had not been disturbed for ages, it was the silence that fell in between them in the illusionscape that felt heavier. Vanessa was referring to what happened with Dave.
She did not make him wait too long.
"There are some factions within Kolar, and some of them are to Nova than others. I... naturally, have been in liaison with the factions close to Nova, and it seems that has attracted the ire of competing factions."
Nero could not help but purse his lips. It was incredible how genuinely little he knew about the true inner workings of Kolar, despite knowing so much about it. He could argue that as a result of his young age, it was only fair that he didn’t know everything, but Vanessa was around his age too.
He tried for a moment to consider what the factions could be. It could be between the Great families and the army, but that didn’t make sense since every Great family was in the army in one way or another. Maybe the factions belonged to the Sages, or the three corps. But even that seemed too clear cut a division.
The whole division of power in the Kolari army was supposed to be such that no one was allowed to become too powerful. That is why even Sage Morphius Kade, the Chief of the Army, could be summoned to answer before the courts. Though, technically, the overseer of the army court was Sage Morphius’ son, so one could argue that his oversight could be skipped. In truth, that was far from the case. The Sages were the ultimate power of any country, the peak of the Eldrim path, yet even the Sages could not exist in isolation. They were too few, and needed Ascendants and Mystics to survive, just as everyone else needed Sages to survive.
So... these factions had to be more complex, and more subtle than a simple, straightforward division through corps.
For a moment, Nero wondered if his family was a part of some faction. He didn’t need to think for long. It was clear that they were with whoever Whisper Guard was with. They had helped out too much for it to be anything else.
Or maybe they were with the civil government, considering his mother worked in the Interior Ministry.
Nero realised that he couldn’t say for certain. His parents had trained him a lot, and hadn’t hesitated in exposing him to things that clearly hadn’t been for children. He wondered, then, why they hadn’t revealed these secrets to him.
"I’ll explain in much more detail once we return from Perilith. The crux of what I want to tell you is that... it is very important that as soon as we’re done with this, we return immediately. If Dave manages to return first, regardless of the truth, he might be able to paint an entirely different picture of what happened here. Or... even if we do manage to capture Dave, we have to ensure that his handover, and the narrative of what happened here, are well within our control."
"You seem to have thought of this in great detail," Nero commented. It was evident that Vanessa had considered multiple scenarios about what could happen once they returned, which was a good thing. They had already made a huge mistake - Nero especially.
He had created the perfect opportunity for Dave to betray everyone by leaving them alone. There was no point in providing justifications or excuses - only the result mattered. So now, instead of dwelling in depression or regret, it was all the more important that they don’t repeat their mistake.
"You may have a lot more experience than me in the actual field," Vanessa said, her voice filled with a hint of defiance, "but the political field is the playground I grew up playing in. I won’t make a mistake again. All I want to say for now is, we have to get back before Dave. If, on the way, we end up capturing Dave, we cannot let him fall into the wrong hands. We have no idea what allies he may have back at base."
Nero simply nodded. Despite his suspicious attitude, he had tasted the bitterness of betrayal. It threatened to overwhelm him, corrode all his trust and make him look at everyone with a hint of suspicion. Could he trust Bael? Vanessa? Could he trust anyone ?
Yet he knew he could not think like that. In this world, no one could survive alone, not even Sages. What he needed to do was become stronger and take greater precautions. He needed to reflect on his own weaknesses, and anticipate where and how he might be attacked, so that the next time something like this happened, he would be ready.
Nero dispelled the illusionscape, and watched in silence as Vanessa began to prep the crystal, keeping an eye out for any danger. The extreme focus on Vanessa’s face did nothing to hide the rage she had suppressed within her eyes. After all, Nero wasn’t the only one who had tasted betrayal.
She had come to Kolar under the guise of a student, sure, but that didn’t change the fact that she was also a diplomat, and a spy. Back in her own country, she was practically a princess, yet she had shed the perceived honours of such an identity to come here, and with her own two hands, carve our actual merits for herself.
She was no less a warrior than any Kolari Nero had seen, and she had the pride to match it - pride that someone had trampled by treating her as a pawn in their game.
So within her chest, within her eyes, burned a fire of its own kind - a fire she contained and used to fuel her focus with a practiced hand.
Despite his usual disinterest in such things, Nero could not help but wonder what kind of life, what kind of experiences this princess had been through to make her like this.
Deep underground, in a long forgotten ancient temple, the two teenagers in silence, more comfortable in each other’s presence than anyone else would have been in such a location.