Up until this point, the few doors they had run into that hadn’t decayed or been destroyed had been easily blown apart with a little force magic. The dome, however, was a powerful, sacred place. It was designed to remain sealed for a hundred years even while the entirety of the city crumbled to ruin and died to the mysterious poison.

And of course, because of that, it had a prominent set of double wide doors at least twenty feet tall that showed no sign of budging whatsoever even when Mason pushed with all of his might.

“You didn’t think to read up in that console about how to get into the place before you sent us all the way here?” he asked his companion while staring up and hoping to find a weakness in the edge of the dome.

“It’s not like I had access to every secret in the city. It was more like I had access to somebody’s journal and a whole lot of newspapers and books,” Leornal complained, sitting down and looking up at the doors. “We’ve gotta get in there though. I mean, seriously, it could take us days to find a more promising lead on getting out of this city.”

Mason turned from the doors and stared down at the towering, interconnected buildings all around them, “Yeah, and it’s still lighting up. You must have turned on a serious network of generators, because this city is coming to life with a vengeance. I wouldn’t be surprised if we ran into a lot more guardians and monsters if we tried to retrace our steps.”

“Well, it’s been fun, but I guess we’ll just have to die here. Its unfortunate your soul has been corrupted and you’ll probably suffer for all of eternity, but I’ll put in a good word for your when I reach the Font of Mana,” Leornal mocked.

Ignoring the insulting part, Mason just retorted, “You’ve been having fun? I’m so relieved to hear that!”

Against his better judgment, Leornal grinned. “Though your staff is truly vile, it’s been pretty convenient for keeping us alive. And you’ve adapted rather quickly to all this,” he gestured broadly.

“I’m just trying to do my best, Leornal. And for what it’s worth- I’m glad that it was you who I was stuck down here with rather than Torysen. She scares the living shit out of me,” Mason laughed.

“She has that effect on people. Though she probably would have been able to take on most of these monsters much more effectively than either of us. Definitely better than you.”

Mason turned to the door then in a fit of inspiration. He pulled the guardian orb out of his pack and lifted it up high in the air. Without a doubt, the runes engraved on the orb were similar to the ones on the door, but he’d long since stopped being surprised that the city would use a consistent language.

Nothing happened as he raised the orb, and he was disappointed, but less than surprised. He cast a glance back at Leornal, who watched him cautiously, and then used his mana manipulation to put a single point of mana into the orb.

It began to shake and vibrate, and Mason saw the panels beginning to pull apart as that point of mana somehow expanded. He kept a tight grip on it and tried to present it to the door, hoping to notice some sign of resonance or familiarity that would indicate he had found the key. What else would a guardian be good for but to open a giant, fancy door?

“What are you trying to do, Demon?” Leornal asked as Mason struggled to keep the orb in his grips.

Mason ignored him. There didn’t seem to be any resonance at all. He couldn’t detect mana flowing between the door to the orb or the orb to the door. There was a more direct approach to take, though.

He slammed the orb against the door several times, and the strange metal seemed to be effective at producing a very loud knocking noise. Mason pressed his ear to the door and could hear it reverberating deeply, sounding as if it were moving further and further away.

Then he heard the mechanical sounds that he had taken for generators earlier, but this time they were beyond the door. He took several steps back, and then the doors began to rumble, and slowly swing open.

The light pouring out from behind the doors added perfectly to the drama of the moment, and Leornal squinted as he was cast full on in the glare.

Shouting triumphantly, Mason peered through the open doorway, and tried to shove down the idea that the door opening had been a complete coincidence that he didn’t deserve in the least. Beyond the doorway though, was a truly impressive place.

The modernity of the dome made Mason reimagine every desolate part of the city he had walked through. This must have been what the whole city looked like, once. It was brightly lit and remarkably clean. The walls were made of polished stones and metals, and there were decorative pillars and statues tastefully scattered about to conjure an image of luxury.

The center of the first floor was a seating area with a functioning fountain in the center. Rows of benches surrounded the fountain, and then behind them were open desks which were clean save for the smattering of crystals, scrolls, books, and loose papers and other assorted vaguely familiar office supplies.

There were three rounded balconies visible going up the entire length of each wall, and rows of bookshelves were barely visible, though they seemed to be covered in as many crystal orbs, or blocks, as they were actual paper books. There were rooms visible down the corridors of bookshelves and other research materials which may have been experiment labs or meeting rooms of various natures.

Straight up, at a distance Mason presumed was halfway up the height of the dome, was what looked like a frosted glass ceiling. The dark shape in the center of its surface intrigued him, and he switched to mana-sight briefly. He couldn’t quite see that far or through the glass, but he had an inkling that there was something powerful and unique up there.

“I haven’t seen anything even remotely as sophisticated as this place since Marra. This is such a beautiful library,” Leornal spoke in awe, casting small bits of mana around so he could get a better view.

“It’s well preserved, that’s for sure. But it’s quiet, and empty. Does the word mausoleum translate to you?” Mason asked.

Leornal nodded grimly, “It would be nice to see this place full of my people. Maybe there’s knowledge here which could give us a fighting chance against the Corrosi and whatever else The Trials plan to throw at us. I wonder if they have stories here too...”

Mason looked around, then back at the shadow above them. “Ready?”

~~

The library dome was deathly silent as they made their way through the bookshelf corridors and up the stairs toward the shadow that had drawn Mason’s attention. Thankfully, within this place, none of the doors had been locked or barred.

It was strange though; despite its desolation, the library looked as if it had been emptied mere minutes ago, not hundreds of years ago. Several of the desks had materials scattered about them like their researcher had just popped away to run to the bathroom, and might step back at any moment with a cup of coffee in hand.

It boded dangerously for the two boys and they knew it. If anyone living remained in this place, they may be too powerful to face at all if they were capable of sealing this library so thoroughly. What had won, ultimately? The seal, or the poison? And if the seal was so strong, why weren’t there more people still here?

At the top of some stairs, they stood before two frosted glass doors on the edge of the room they had been aiming for. Leornal put his hand against it and took a deep breath, looking back at Mason to make sure he was also ready. Mason nodded, staff in hand and only a little nervous. The door swung open under Leornal’s touch, and light poured out blindingly.

Mason woke with his head resting on his crossed arms, leaning over a reddish, dark, wooden table. “What?” he asked the air as he sat up. He tried to push his chair back, but found it was mounted to the ground. He leaned to the side to look closer at the table and the chair, and found that they were perfectly sealed to the wooden floor below.

Pushing himself to his feet, he looked around hastily, uncertain how he had found himself in such a small, wooden room. A glance above revealed a bright lantern in a golden frame, hanging from the ceiling by a gold chain. He looked closer at the table and found that it wasn’t just mounted to the ground, it looked like it had either been carved of the same tree, or actually grew out of it.

He began to turn then, trying to take in his surroundings quickly as his heart rate quickened. This wasn’t where he was supposed to be. There were bookshelves lining each of the walls in the hexagonal room, and even these seemed to be made of a bent and twisted rosewood that was naturally attached to the wall.

Vines ran the length of the shelves and even curled around the base of the table he had woken up at, and as he followed that vine he saw that it actually ran up the table, and into an indent that was carved onto its surface. The indent led into the outermost circular carving, and the vine traced it the entire way, eventually tying back into itself. The rest of the table was covered in several concentric circles, with a round indent in the very center that looked like it would hug a bowl nicely.

“Is this… a treehouse?” He pondered, scratching his head and stretching. Why was he so tired if he had been sleeping?

Though they resembled bookshelves in their shape and style, the shelves along the room actually were covered in large bottles with multi-colored liquids. There were cobwebs strewn about some of the bottles, and dust on the shelves, but others showed signs of having been moved recently, and a few even looked brand new.

Hesitant to touch them, Mason turned in place to look them all over. They seemed to be arranged by the color of the liquid inside- there were blues, greens, yellows, reds, purples, and even a silver looking liquid. Strangest was that the separation wasn’t simply by shelf- the color of a bottle seemed to depend on its specific orientation on a shelf, and the pattern of colors seemed to move with a winding bent around the room.

The color didn’t seem to mix at all, and instead split jarringly even right down the center of potions. There were some that were half red, and half blue, but split vertically in a way that seemed impossible. The colors looked as if they were twisting and winding around the room like the branches themselves.

He had the vague understanding that this place was not where he meant to be, or where he was supposed to be, but when he tried to remember there was simply nothing. His memories went no further back than waking up on the table.

On one wall of the wooden room was the outline of where a door should be, but the door was conspicuously missing.

Considering that he was probably stuck in this strange room until he did something, he took a random bottle off a shelf and looked through the glass. The fluid was dyed a dark blue, and sloshed around viscously as the bottle moved. He pulled the cork out and a fragrant scent wafted out, reminding him of wet stone and dirt.

He almost pressed the bottle to his lips, but something screamed within him with such force that he cringed. A chill went down his spine, and he quietly accepted that as a bad idea. Then he looked down at the table, and he sat back in his chair with the bottle still in hand. He placed the bottle in the center of the table and waited.

A few moments passed, and the liquid in the bottle started to ripple, as if the table were vibrating beneath it, and he thought he almost saw the vine twitch in the outer ring. He considered this, and then overturned the bottle, pouring its contents into the shallow basin in the table.

Even though there was no connecting pathway between the basin and the concentric rings, as he poured, each ring began to fill with the liquid and glow. As the liquid spread through the outermost ring, the vine began to move restlessly, and the glow grew to the point where it was all Mason could see.

Like looking through a window, he stared through the table and saw himself, fighting sloppily in a dark cavern lit by strange lights. The large white beast he fought was yeti-like, and seemed to overpower him with each blow.

Disturbed by this strange vision, he picked the bottle back up and watched the fluid pull itself back toward the central basin and slowly fly back into the bottle. Mason corked it and moved back to the shelf. What a strange place…