A Silver Fortune appeared in the air as the door slid shut, illuminating the space beyond the Maze of the Ushabti. The lantern in Nic’s hands had gone out- it slowly faded into mist as he held it.

A long hallway ran upwards, the walls covered in peeling gold and blue paints depicting gods above rows and rows of hieroglyphs. Nic touched them, running his finger over the indentations in the wall looking for some trigger to receive Anet-Mu’s final message.

Nothing occurred.

Three open doorways branched out along the left-hand side, with a final sealed door at the end.

Sula drew out a vial of some blue liquid, spinning it with a flick of her wrist until it lit up a brilliant starry white. She moved into the final one of the three open rooms, turning back to nod at Nic.

It was time to loot.

Reaching up, he touched the Silver Fortune and received a puff of cosmic dust, quickly forming into a quiver of patterned white snakeskin full of brightly feathered arrows. Pulling one out, Nic conjured Archive Recall.

Feather-Flight Arrow. G-Class // Treasured Artifact. Made from the feathers of sacred birds who traveled the entire world and became sages, these arrows bear the enchantment of the traveller. Where they land, the archer will appear, leaping alongside his shot.

Slinging it over his back, Nic moved on.

He entered the first chamber to find four sarcophagus laid out in a half-ring around the doorway. As he entered a torch flared to life above each of the four, but one by one they fell away, sputtering out. Only two remained lit.

Each of the coffins had an extravagantly detailed face carved onto it. A warrior’s proud visage with a smile twisted by scars. A beautiful woman with a shaved head and spears of bone stuck through her nose. An ugly, plague-scarred face, a huge tattoo branded into the left side. A proud and delicate man who was nearly androgynous save for his chinstrap beard.

The woman and the branded slave were the ones beneath the burning torches. Nic moved to them first, laying his hand on the coffin lid of the beautiful warrior.

A ghost of billowing golden energy emerged from within. She appeared like an apparition of the past, every bit as gorgeous here as in the still carving of her face. With a sickle sword and a thin dagger crossed over her chest, her piercing eyes gazed down at Nic.

“I am Tamehu. In life, none could match my grace or the speed of my feet. I entered the arena as a girl from an unknown land and left as the goddess of the cheering masses. When the new gods came, of course I prospered. To fight endlessly? To grow strong from the blood of the dead? These were meat and wine to me.”

Her voice was oddly flat, and Nic instinctively knew this wasn’t a true ghost or even an echo of the real person. It was a facsimile, an image made in her likeness.

“I leave my legacy to the strong and the fleet.” A small ring of golden bells floated in her hand. It was an anklet of silver strung with chimes that floated towards his hand.

Bangle of the Four Cardinal Bells. F-Class // Treasured Artifact. Made from precious metals taken from the four corners of a destroyed earth, this simple bangle allows the bearer to feel the ‘wind’ of enemy strikes and evade with ease.

As it settled into his hand the ghost vanished.

Nic moved to the next coffin, the branded and scarred man. As he touched the sarcophagus another specter arose, bent and hunched, grinning a wry smile that made Nic see instantly that this man- whatever cruelties his life had inflicted on him- had never stopped living.

“I am Nut. I was a slave to the priests of the high temple, and in secret I chipped away the gold, the lapis, the rich materials of their godly statues. In the dark of my small quarters I made my own gods, clever things woven together from what I had stolen. Small gods, to defend the small folks, little totems of medicine to heal sickly slaves and charms to ease the pain of a whipping. When the new gods came, my pantheon defend me and allowed me to rise while my former masters fell.”

He held out his hand. A scarab idol materialized, its body made of a single sky blue shard set into a frame of gold and jade stone.

“I give my legacy to those who come from below, and do not forget their roots.”

Hierophant Shard F-Class (Peak) // Secondary. This shard contains purest Essence attuned to the concepts of immortality and bestowal. It has been damaged by the death of its previous owner and cannot serve as a Primary Shard, but due to peak quality, the resulting skill will be easy to advance. Well suited to forming a Divinity Core, a Gracious Core, or an Ecclesiarch Core.

Nic accepted the Shard, turning it over in his hand. The ghost had already dissolved into the shadows, but he dipped his head, bowing to both sarcophagi. “Thank you.”

These were people who, even through the ages, saw some connection in him. A spark of themselves reflected in his struggle. Anet-Mu had left this place to memorialize his fallen companions and pass on small shards of their legacies.

It would be up to him to carry those hopes.

Nic entered the next chamber, but none of the sarcophagi lit up for him. No voices spoke as he ran his hands over them. He met Sula coming the other way, smiling as she looked down at a small fragment of carved bone in her hand. A flute.

“This place is something special. A little fragment of memory someone set aside for us.”

Nic nodded. “Anet-Mu. Last standing Integration. I guess...” He scratched his head. “I guess this was his way of trying to help the next world the System ate?”

They crossed ways as she went to explore the chambers where he’d already been and test her luck. Nic stepped into the final chamber.

A single torch sputtered into life.

The coffin it stood over was that of a priest, cowled and covered in fine ornaments of bone. He held a staff in his carved hands and had a bald, shaven head, with a foreward prow of a nose and an expression both determined and kind.

As his projection rose into the air, it spoke.

“My name is Anen. I was highborn, but of little wealth, and found myself obliged to work washing corpses to pay for my own parents’ funerals. When the corpse of a pharaoh came under my care, it spoke to me and whispered secrets of the crown. In exchange I stole his heart and buried it in the desert, so our cruel gods could not claim his soul.”

Forming in the priests hand was a familiar sight. A bronze plate hammered with hieroglyphs.

“My legacy goes to those who will use it to regrow the green earth and good world I once knew.”

As it descended into Nic’s hands he grinned. Four of the six Plates of the Sun God’s Dictate he needed were in his possession. Two more, and he’d be able to assemble the cultivation manual that was divided among them.

But none of them were what he was searching for.

As he returned to the central hallway, Sula was waiting, smoking a cigarette. “Nothing?”

“Nothing.” They both looked towards the sealed final door.

“Considering the last time I tried to force a door open, it unleashed a horde of stone soldiers, I don’t think trying to crack this one by force will do us any good. Any chance you’ve got a trick up your sleeve, Nic?”

“Maybe.” Something was off here. Twelve warriors had been sent on the final mission, which only Anet-Mu had survived. And there were twelve empty sarcophagi in this tomb.

But none of them had a face Nic could imagine as belonging to Anet-Mu. He had heard the man’s voice three times now, and his impression was of a wise, patient sage, moved to incredible anger by watching his world be torn apart. Of immense bitterness lurking in a heart that had once been full of kindness.

He walked back through the rooms, searching for what didn’t belong. What was out of place and clumsy.

The System had tried to hide the last three of Anet-Mu’s messages. It hadn’t fully destroyed them, but disguised them, twisted the words about so they became part of the System’s grand game.

Among the faces of the dead Nic found an ancient king, the coffin covered in gilt, the young face decorated with a headdress and golden paints. He held a sword in one hand and a crook in the other, both incredibly decorated with jewels and symbols.

Would Anet-Mu, who had seen his rulers betray their world, choose to entomb someone like that here?

“Sofia? Help me see through this.”

“Alright, but- Nicolas, just be careful. This Anet-Mu has a grudge to bear, and I doubt he’d blink at sacrificing your life to see it paid in full. Sula is on the edge of heresy herself. This is a dangerous game you’ve become involved with.”

“I know.”

A resonant sound swept through his mind and his crystal-eye flared. There was a flicker in the shadows of the room. A torch flickered into life, and the pharaoh’s coffin vanished. A stairway led down into the dark.

Nic grinned. As he descended into the dark, a familiar voice filled the passageway, echoing through the stony tomb.

In the final year of my life,

I have begun to plan vengeance against the System. A spell of fate and bitter anger that I wove in my journey through the Rift, beyond space, beyond time- beyond the ability of the hated System to control the outcome.

It may well take a hundred years to complete, a slow poison of revenge, but there will come a day. That you are hearing these words means that day is soon, for you are part of the spell, drawn here by the fate I created. And since we are alike- since we are allies against the System- I will not have you leave empty handed.

My spell will give you the weapon you need. When my world becomes a Dungeon, and is crudely stitched to a new one, the spell will draw that world’s greatest strength into my tomb.

And finally, there shall be an enemy. This is the final part of the spell- drawing a vulnerable part of the System to the world, luring in some small fragment of the whole that can be harmed.

You are the inheritor of the last thing.

I give to you my hatred, wrought in fire.

The tunnel lifted up a set of stairs. Nic emerged into a chamber where an enormous oblong weapon of grey-green metal, stamped with yellow warning signs, sat against rests of ancient stone. It was so clearly not of this world- it had fins at one end like an arrow, meant to move through the air. A cap of yellow covered the wider point.

It resembled a metal egg, waiting to hatch into death.

Something was very wrong about it. Looking at the weapon, Nic felt an immense dread, almost a physical pressure. A sickness radiating into the air.

Mark VI Aerial Bomb. Anomalous // Technologia. This immense shell contains a miniature core of dense, contained hatred, ready to erupt given the smallest of pressures to begin a terrible chain reaction. WARNING. DO NOT INTERFERE.

The door was sliding open. Leading back to the hallway. To Sula.

Before she could see what he was doing, Nic slid open a hatch and bit his finger. He reached inside to scrawl a single rune on the inside curve.

Lakash.

An insurance, a hidden dagger, an ace in the hole. A tiny detonator scrawled into an explosive device that could end a god.

He snapped the hatch shut just in time as the door swung open and Sula stepped inside.