Chapter 101: Chapter 101: The Crevice
They passed the narrow throat of stone as though entering the gullet of some slumbering beast. The walls closed in until the air itself felt taut, stretched thin over ancient masonry. A pregnant hush reigned—the silence of old stone, sealed away from breath and voice for untold centuries. Their footsteps echoed, too loud in such stillness, as if drawing attention. The floor beneath them was smooth, but slanted ever so slightly, forcing them to tread with care, feet sliding at odd angles.
Shafts of pale blue and violet light—thin veins of crystal woven into the walls—glimmered faintly along the edges of the corridor. The hue was ghostly, as though the bones of the earth still softly glowed. Wherever the light touched, shadows were born: long, slender, drifting. Li Wei’s cloak whispered as he stepped.
"Look," he said, fingers brushing along a glowing ridge in the wall. His hand trembled slightly—not from fear, but from recognition. The energy within felt ancient, yet disturbingly vibrant, like a power awakened from rotting slumber. "The crystals are reacting. Whoever built this expected guests—or at least intruders clever enough to earn passage."
Leng Yue did not answer at once. Her eyes were sharp, darting from one rune-marked tile to the next, alert for secret pressure plates or sudden shifts in the floor. She crouched near a raised seam on the tiling, the scabbard tip of her blade tracing the pattern. The symbol under her fingertip flared faintly, a brief pulse of silver light, then waned again.
"Resonance," she murmured, voice so low it might have been wind in the stone. "Every action we take might be logging our location." She straightened, face pale in the crystal glimmer. "These formations are not especially lethal—yet—but they betray our path to watchers."
Li Wei exhaled. His breath came out as mist in the chilly corridor. "Then best we do not linger."
He led the way, and after a few cautious steps, the corridor opened into a modest chamber. It was octagonal, the walls rising steep and tall. Etchings ran from base to crown, in the same haunting style they had seen before. But here, the imagery told a different tale. There were no battles, no beasts, no titanic storms. Rather, there were scholars in libraries, engineers bent over blueprints, monks inscribing runes in the firelight, hands moving with ice-cold precision. Scenes of knowledge, creation—power born not of conflict but of intellect and sacrifice.
Leng Yue murmured, "They honored the mind, not merely the sword." Her fingers lingered on one mural, imagining the cold glint of ink, the quill scratching sacred glyphs.
In the center of the room stood a pedestal. Upon it, a smooth, hemispherical stone of polished obsidian lay cradled in jade, claw-like prongs.
Around its base, silver gears turned silently, as though in perpetual worship. Their motion was slow, deliberate, humming with hidden mechanisms propelling fuel directly into the cogs.
Leng Yue advanced with subtle steps, footfalls soft. "Another control node. They were quite fond of these contraptions?" she offered. Her voice echoed faintly in the silent chamber. "It is likely part of an entire chain of machinery operating in tandem."
Li Wei moved to the opposite side of the pedestal. The air around it was unnaturally cool, prickling against his exposed skin. He extended his hand but paused just shy of direct contact with the pillar of black crystal.
"The energy is reactive," he said, voice steady though his heart responded. "Not quite deadly, but far from normal." He inhaled slowly, drew a final breath, and closed his eyes. He activated his third eye. Behind the lids, the world dissolved in crystal light and subtle veils.
Outward from the support beam, threads of energy snaked like roots—some connecting back into the dozens of murals, others vanishing into the stonework floor, descending into unseen depths of the drainage system.
Li Wei reached inward, searched his spiritual well, then summoned a slender pulse of white qi. The subtle current flowed outward into his palm, humming in resonance with the crystal core firmly in his grasp.
~bzzzmm~
The obsidian sphere flared to life. A vertical beam of light burst upward, revolving, then resolved into a three-dimensional image: the gate they had encountered earlier, viewed from above. Around it, layers of spellwork and mechanical wards rotated like clockwork puzzle pieces.
Leng Yue’s eyes widened. "A schematic..."
"Yes. An ingenious one," Li Wei said, tone awed. "See here—multiple layers, elemental resistances marked in color. Beneath them... a timed rotation of internal locks. If one can influence their sequence—"
"Then one can unlock the gears within the door," Leng Yue finished. She stepped closer to the image, fingertips reaching toward the spectral blueprint, as though she might touch it.
Li Wei nodded. "But caution—these layers are not independent. Mess with one, and others may respond. The wards are lithe, reactive. We cannot simply brute-force it."
Leng Yue studied the rotating elements—cogs, runic seals, pulses of internal magic. She licked her lips. "We must trace which threads link to which protections. The crystal veins here—they must connect to the gate’s reinforcement."
She pointed to a delicate silver line connecting one glyph in the mural to a ward layer in the projection. "See that one? If I sever that flux, we might collapse a resistance barrier."
Behind them, the chamber walls seemed to breathe. The murals whispered faint hums, like the distant chanting of monks. Shadows shifted at the edges of their vision. The distant drip of water echoed—drop... drip... in cadence with their own heartbeats.
Leng Yue glanced sidelong at Li Wei. Her voice dropped. "We’re not alone, are we?"
Li Wei’s third eye flared, scanning. He felt a tremor in the energy web, threads rippling. "Something stirs beyond the walls," he said softly. "But watchers or guardians—I cannot yet tell."
Leng Yue’s hand hovered near the control sphere. The jade claws seemed alive, veins faintly pulsing. The silver gears rotated. The murmur of shifting runes filled the chamber like a chant too soft to comprehend.
She said, "Then we must move with haste. Let me try on that glyph you pointed out at first."
Li Wei nodded. He stepped back, extending his hands to steady the ambient flow of energy. His eyes flickered gently behind his closed lids, monitoring threads.
Leng Yue drew her breath, then laid a fingertip upon the glyph in the holographic projection. Around her, the projection glowed. The glyph flared silver, the connected ward line pulsing. She whispered an incantation from memory—old words from her master, a proverb: "When mind and spirit dance, stone and rune must yield."
The glyph trembled. One layer in the projected lock shimmered and collapsed inward, as though consumed, and a low mechanical click echoed—click... click—echoing in real space. One layer of the gate’s defenses faded.
But at once, the other wards stirred in protest. Threads of energy recoiled, and a wave of pressure rippled outward. The crystal veins in the walls flared with light—blue and violet strings flooding the corridor beyond the chamber.
Li Wei gasped and steadied himself. "We have triggered a response."
The pedestal’s beam intensified. The projection rotated faster. A new layer of warding glowed a furious red as locks shifted.
Leng Yue pulled back a hand. "I must step carefully. One careless step—and we lose more than we could ever gain."
She withdrew slightly, eyes scanning the mural walls. On one mural was a motif of a scholar measuring distances between stars. On another, a monk breathing life into runes. Each scene seemed connected to the central node, as though the murals themselves were more than decoration—they were living maps.
Li Wei placed his hand upon the obsidian sphere’s edge, steering the projection gently. "We can isolate internal locks here, here, here," he traced lines in midair. "Divide and conquer."
Leng Yue nodded, her gaze steely. "Then we strike simultaneously. You sever the ward currents, I collapse the mechanical locks."
At that instant, the chamber trembled. A crack appeared across one wall’s mural, fissuring downward. Dust drifted. The guardians had been called to arms. A low rumble echoed—stone flexing, gears groaning.
Leng Yue’s heart pounded. She steadied her voice. "Be ready."
Li Wei exhaled. "On three."