An Excursion in Ignorance

__________________________

The Wellspring – Farcaster Chamber

Darkness flees with the advent of light. Pure, concentrated, nary a flicker as it rushes out from the Farcaster seal. The process inverts. Bones and sinew weave a shell, and skin rushes to complete her Falseflesh as Eidos is rebuilt from the life-fire of the Nether Edge. When the reintegration ends and the light dies, the murky shadows return and Eidos is plunged into their dark realm. She is immediately buffeted from all sides by short-livedgusts of wind, driving her from the metallic surface of the Farcaster seal. Okay, not fun. Stop it, wind! Her eyes grow accustomed to the chamber’s low light. Four walls shield half an octagonal chamber, the missing ones the source of the recent gales.

Moving forward towards the opening and looking down, she sees tiny pinpoints of light, shimmering within the surface below. They stare at her like the myriad eyes of curious yet shy onlookers hiding behind dark veils. And yet another creepy place. Yet soon the illusion is dispelled. As Eidos notices their unnatural swaying motion, she sees the reflection for what it is. These are the lights of the stars, mischievously misguiding their observers into a reflecting pool. Canting her head skywards, she confirms her suspicions, finding a band of sky snaking through the canopy of shadows overhead. This place is scary, yet also, oddly beautiful. She is learning to appreciate the little things.

Her eyes adapt quickly to the meager starlight, and the shapes of her surroundings begin to reveal themselves. Eidos stands in a chamber much like the one in which she first awoke. The tiles here may be cracked and broken all about, and the walls may be barren and devoid of all decoration, but the material, and structure are identical to what she witnessed in the Sanctuary. Same builders?

Staring out beyond the missing walls, Eidos soon sees that this room is not the only victim of entropy’s greed; in fact, the building housing the chamber itself has likewise been ripped open by some ancient cataclysm. An immense ravine cuts through the building like a killing blow from Heaven’s sword.

Behind her, a door but ten paces away breaks the continuity of the walls and leads deeper into the Wellspring. I suppose that’s where I have to go, then. But it holds little interest for her at the moment and she approaches the edge of the ruined chamber now staring out over the ravine. Once there, a mischievous wind again seeks to off-balance the intrepid explorer, but this time Eidos is prepared. She roots herself firmly and thus, only her travel robe is whipped about.

Her eyes, now fully adjusted to the lonely starlight above, spot the reflective surface of another rockface at the far side of this expansive ravine. The missing side? What could’ve broken a building in two? Though too dark to tell for sure, she thinks she spots four more walls on the opposite side.

Suddenly, Eidos feels a familiar presence. Engraved into a smooth stone pedestal near her, a Glyph gazes up at the starlit sky. That’s the same Glyph from Khaa’s Sigil. What was it? The Sigil of Wulfias? She reaches to touch the pedestal and suddenly all thought scatters. Staring into the mirror of memory, the reflection of a proud yet penitent mage flashes before her eyes.

A single tear for Rikharr traces the mage’s cheek, falling to the cold metal of his silver throne. The deep spring beneath these ruins cries in sympathy, thus beginning the endless flow now within it. The flame of life soon flares within the ancient edifice as the mage's own flame slowly dwindles, slowly wanes, soon becoming nothing but a thin stream of smoke. Very soon, all turns cold and still, as even the memory of the candle itself fades into oblivion…

What just happened? For a moment, I was… someone else. Eidos wipes the tears she only now realizes stream down her face. She remembers lives of the past, lives yet to come, lives she must live, all very much her own, and yet as foreign and as insubstantial as a dream.

Her hand yet grips the pedestal, and instinct compels her to palm its companion Sigil. Instinct becomes will, will then becoming thought. An image slowly forms, burning out lines from the void. A circle manifests, weaving an intricate tapestry of lines, never crossing, as they traverse dimensions linking paths among them. And soon, the Glyph from the Sigil of Wulfias is fully formed, completing the reaction.

The far side of the ravine burns a cold violet as a cloudstone near it springs to life. Responding to her will, the pedestal pulls the glowing stone towards her. Slowly it crawls its way through the emptiness, and soon the violet haze of the floating platform reaches the edge of the chamber, ready for Eidos to ride it across.

Stepping onto the ancient device, Eidos half fears it will fall, casting her down into the shimmering abyss below. Yes, but then again, I’m constantly worried that this world is trying to kill me, so… The pool with its thousand eyes seems to stare in anticipation of her descent. But then again—again(?)—I’ve really only died once before. And it wasn’t that bad. Growing comfortable with her situation, Eidos resolves to proceed.

Suddenly, the cloudstone lurches forward, jolting Eidos off balance. Argh, dammit! Crouching low, she quickly adjusts to the new direction of motion and realigns herself as the levitating platform glides across the ravine.

Gripping the edge and peering over the side, she now sees the truly gargantuan extent of the rift's breadth and depth. So wide an arrow loosed across it would never reach the other side; so deep the arrow would pierce the water erect. The platform's slow pace likewise allows her to get a better view of the starry sky above. As she deeply inhales the chill night air, it feels as though time slows to a near halt, moments now measured only by the space between her own awestruck breaths.

But as all moments must, this moment of tranquility also passes, and Eidos sees that she has safely reached the other side. Well, that was nice. But, now it’s back to narrowly avoiding death. The landing on this side is much the same as the one she left behind. The entrance to another chamber warmly invites her in, like an old friend. That’s where I go. I mean you’re not going to bring me all the way here just to send me back, right body?

She hesitates, Oh, come on!, finally stepping from the platform and moving towards the door.

________________________

The Wellspring – The Silver Shrine

Light appears to be in short supply. Maybe it has to do with the incident? What little aid Eidos' strained eyes do receive bleeds in from large gashes in the domed ceiling far above. However, those exposed patches of starlight burned in the midnight sky rain down enough of their bounty to make out the shapes and sizes of all objects within the chamber. While the stars were myriad fireflies in the great abyss of the ravine, here their power is blurred, distorted, and yet unified. Their ambient glow seems to coalesce around a shining silver throne, as if it wore a shroud woven from spiraling flecks of mist and light.

This room is a strange concoction of ruin and ritual, accident and artifice. The floor gently crackles with her every step as though eggshells lined her path. Looking down, Eidos notes that the floor was once made of titanic slabs of stone, each perhaps twice as wide as she is tall and half again as long, yet all are now shattered. Within each slab, countless cracks spread out like spiderwebs from focused wounds.

Gaze again shifting skywards, Eidos observes that the many dark panes of the ceiling mirror the ground in their destruction. Nearly all are marred by countless fractures streaking across their surfaces like sparks frozen in time.

Yet, the room's utter ruin stands in stark opposition to its centerpiece. The metallic throne abates the encroaching pandemonium, a defiant rock standing amid the crashing waves of entropy. It is surrounded by clay vessels of water, eight in number. From these eight points, white chalk radiates outward, marking a spiraling pathway through the chamber. The line connects each impact point to the central throne, octagons within squares within circles surrounding each point. Unlit candles have been placed along this path and the smell of incense still lingers in the air.

The perfection and symmetry given to these tracings battle Nature's tendency toward anarchy, serving as an imposition of order upon chaos, stability upon uncertainty. Sure is… artistic… But what could’ve caused this? It had to be before the recent incident, otherwise how would they have drawn out all of this nonsense in the first place?

Eidos carefully steps across the cracking surface and over the designs, momentarily darkening the shimmering glow of reflected starlight as though she were a storm cloud blotting out the sun. The silvered throne appears to blur as she draws nearer and clarity eludes her vision, despite conquering physical distance. The surface looks slightly melted, as if it had once been exposed to intense heat.

An irresistible urge to sit upon the chair emerges, and without understanding why, she sits. Ok, get ready for another bizarre experience, Eidos. All about her, lingering whispers echo, yet she does not feel the vibrations of a physical sound. The whispers crescendo through the power of mechanisms unseen until language emerges.

“onWulfiaskuarchonohreckish,” a thousand voices seem to chant at once. “onvadohnashleerish. onfuokarrohvanish. onGurgadonugokohnashshonzhaiish.. onGulgannawahidhvashonzhaiish…”

This sounds just like the sentry back in the Sanctuary!

“onkarroh.. vanish…” sing the myriad voices, fading abruptly at the end. “ibdormohsuoh.. ibnashreckish.. sohdormish…” Then, silence.

Eidos rises, leaving the throne and its ghostly choir. I really need to learn whatever language it is they’re speaking. Looking to the left, Eidos sees a metallic gate, composed of thousands of interlocking plates like the scales of a forged serpent. It may once have been a mechanical marvel, but it now stands immobile, frozen in time and laying bare its secrets. The semi-circular tunnel beyond it is wide enough to fit fifty men abreast. To the right, a nearly identical gate resides. This twin is of similar composition, but unlike its candid brother, this gate is sealed shut.

Walking past the threshold of the open gate, the air becomes murky and suffocating. While the previous area carried the scent of incense, this place reeks of it. The smell and murk become ever denser until it is as if she were walking through a fog. Still, she moves forward into the passageway beyond.

________________________

The Wellspring – Gurgadon’s Sanctum

As Eidos reaches the end of the passage, the sporadic reflections of metal sparkle at her arrival. She now stands in a chamber built up of a great many walls rising around her in the shape of an irregular orb. Each wall appears to be a five-sided surface, though thick clouds of incense smoke make their exact number difficult to determine. Here too, stars peek through small cracks in the ceiling, but the rays are diffused by the stale, smoky vapors.

Searching through the haze, Eidos observes that the smoke arises from the past exhalations of five braziers, one in each of the floor's corners. Only the slightest hint of red abides within them to hint at their dying embers. They surround a great mass at the chamber's center, a heap of material indistinct in the gloom. Traced white chalk patterns adorn the floor, as they did in the Silver Shrine whence she came, yet the relative lack of luminescence renders them dull and lifeless by comparison.

Unlit candles likewise dot the landscape, surrounding mounds of glass shards at various points in the spiraling patterns. Bowls of sacrifice have been placed upon these shards, though they seem to lie empty. The source of the glass becomes apparent as Eidos turns her gaze to the walls and ceiling. The entire area is studded with large crystalline mounds, most broken and ruined.

At last, Eidos reaches the center of the room, just as her eyes adjust to the murky haze. What light does shine into this chamber is reflected off the lightly dusted, massive cobalt mound resting before her.

She squints to focus her vision in an effort to discern the nature of this metallic heap. In time, her mind brings the details into focus and comes to the startling realization that she is gazing into the lifeless eye of a once-animated behemoth. Aaahhhh! She leaps back in surprise before steadying herself. The mound is of tremendous size, dwarfing her many times over. What is that thing!? Though it may have been mighty in life, this inert monstrosity now poses no threat. What am I saying? It’s just one of the thousands of dangerous things I keep bumping into. At least it’s not alive anymore.

Composure regained, Eidos begins to circle the body, noticing numerous dimly glowing, green gashes marring the corpse's metal carapace. Don’t tell me Luin killed this thing, too?! Well, at least he’s on my side… While the chamber is too dark to look inside the wounds with any semblance of clarity, it appears that the cobalt plating is not hollow but an armored skin protecting something inorganic within. She walks for minutes until finally coming back around to what must have been its gargantuan head. Here a puncture wound piercing it from jaw to crown leaks a cerulean ichor, still wet to the touch… And here we are touching things we shouldn’t be touching again. I hate that I can recognize this stuff by feel… gross, it’s basically sentry blood. So was this thing also a sentry?

But this is all she can determine from her current investigations and now is left with no other options but to return whence she entered. All right, time to go, body.

____________________

The Wellspring – The Ravine

Eidos makes her way back to the cloudstone that brought her here, careful not to disturb any of the scrupulously arranged items of worship. Upon reaching the ravine, she mounts the floating cloudstone, this time prepared for the lurch, and off she goes.

Soon she is soaring across the expanse, but this time fully turning her attention to the sights below. The downward distance between her and that of the pooled water is staggering. Were it not for the stars reflected upon its rippling, glassy surface, Eidos would see nothing but an endless void.

Suddenly, the abyss within seems to resonate with the one below, calling out to her. A vision of casting herself from the platform seizes her with vivid clarity. No, not going to jump! She can see herself crashing into the void and joining in its solitude, becoming nothing in its all-encompassing embrace. Now don’t do anything rash, body! A powerful desire to peer into this tenebrous patch of midnight wraps its tendrils around her, guiding her to look upon on the other side of death. Look, I can’t die, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt when I get killed!

As quickly as it came, the moment passes. Why do you enjoy scaring me like that, body? The promise of maturity has been fulfilled and her darkest moment yet is now a thing of the past. By the time she can regain her bearings, she has already arrived at the Farcaster side of the ravine. Great, now let’s not think about death and try walking through the door on this side, shall we?

She steps off of the cloudstone and proceeds through the doorway entering deeper into the Wellspring. Good, now I just need to find out where I can release the water… Probably should have asked Khaa that… Oh, well.

___________________

The Wellspring – The Cage

The howling winds turn to inaudible whimpers as Eidos enters a narrow corridor. Lichen crawling across the stonework belies the apparent age and relative disuse of this area. She slips at closely spaced intervals, stubbornly refusing to fall in spite of the slick lichen's best efforts. Before long, however, dust begins to coat the floor in thin films, making the path slightly less treacherous. While the corridor is dark at first, the promise of light shines from a door some fifty paces beyond.

The threshold transports her into a dimly lit chamber. Sconces embedded in the walls bathe the room in soft, amber light, revealing finely carved support structures. The fluted columns and scrollwork adorning the structures have been aged by the persistence of the damp winds, the same ones silently creeping down the corridor in pursuit of Eidos.

The room is dominated by a mechanical device, an open cage on a raised platform at the center of the room. Not far from where she stands, Eidos likewise spies a raised font, or stone pedestal of some sort. Exactly the same as the one near the ravine… must control that cage thing over there.

Eidos first approaches the cage. A visual distortion warps the space within. The air shimmers and swirls, coalescing into a pale, blue humanoid form. Balled up and floating mid air, it spins, limbs unfolding and eyelids opening, revealing a pair of glowing eyes—as amber as the crystalline light within the room—peeking out from beneath a crimson hood.

The elegant and terrifying form of a nearly naked woman now hovers midair, suspended within the cage as if in water. The tendrils of her long, red hair snake and writhe about with uncanny slowness. And what once appeared to be a hood atop her head, Eidos now sees as merely an extension of the creature's prehensile hair.

At the mere thought of approach, the female reacts. The speed of the creature's movement increases. Its eyes glow with a richer, golden incandescence. Motes of light flicker within its pearlescent skin, floating in the creature just as it floats in the cage. The ambient light within the room seems to wax as though overpowered and absorbed, the creature's luminescent intensity inversely mirroring it. This can’t be good…

Eidos hears a voice, echoing within her mind. Faint and elusive, it more closely resembles the incomplete recollection of a melody than speech. She listens, carefully, seeking the pattern within the melody. She hears no words, only humming and buzzing, waves of emotion both consistent and evolving.

Parsing the signs and signifiers, Eidos suddenly has a flash of insight: the creature does not speak; it simply emotes; and it appears to eagerly anticipate Eidos' approach… Whereas I eagerly anticipate my retreat.

Sensing danger, Eidos retreats to the pedestal, hoping to avoid conflict with the specter. Embedded in the center of the pedestal, a shining, glossy crystal radiates soft amber light. At its core, Eidos spots a thin filament, a pulsating light. She looks deeper; there she sees an image within the flickering spark. A dormant feminine figure, knees curled to her chest, reclines within an invisible barrier; her body is covered only by flowing locks of long, red hair. Okay, so is this her true form or what?

Of instinct, Eidos grips the pedestal and the Sigil of Wulfias, as she did near the ravine. Instinct becomes will, will then becoming thought. An image slowly forms, burning out lines from the void. A circle manifests, weaving an intricate tapestry of lines, never crossing, as they traverse dimensions linking paths among them. And soon, the Glyph from the Sigil of Wulfias is fully formed, completing the reaction.

The intellect within the crystal is laid bare. So this is an ‘arclight’… a protector of some sort? While its intent to protect this location is clear, the arclight's thoughts remain unintelligible. Protecting it from what? What exactly did the Dazirans do in here? The Sigil now activated, Eidos is shrouded in the cloak of Wulfias' identity, thus assuming the mantle of Wellspring Archon. The arclight obsequiously bows to its master, only to then vanish into the void whence it emerged.

Again approaching the cage, Eidos can sense the mindshell that manipulates the device. It is a lift for accessing two other levels of the Wellspring—one above and one below. She enters.Going up! As soon as the thought is shaped in her mind, a dumb, formless awareness responds by propelling the metal platform into motion. The clatter of the mechanism becomes almost deafening as the cage rises into an aperture at the top of the ceiling and she is plunged into darkness.

___________________

The Wellspring – The Mural Room

As the cage travels further up the shaft, the darkness slowly gives way to a dim yet variegated glow. When the contraption is pulled passed the lip of the floor above, Eidos witnesses its source. Innumerable crystalline pieces adorn the walls, each one glowing dimly like the frozen flames of a thousand candles.

The illumination distracts, however, from the true nature of this rainbow mosaic; crystals upon three of the four walls are arranged in what looks to be a collection of smaller images, seeming to relate a series of grand events. While the character and detail of the happenings differ, they appear to have been committed to stone at the same time and by a single artist. The stark contrast of the one wall standing completely devoid of glass and light seems to await a history yet to come.

The first wall shows a number of folk standing in worship about a circle of stones at whose center is a massive tree. Looks a lot like the one in the Sanctuary archives. The branches of this great white Muninn host leaves of a vibrant emerald green. Looking closely, Eidos sees that this wall is framed in a matching border of twisting, leafy vines. A blue clad figure sits in its branches, bearing a halo or sun-like object in upraised hands.

Another image upon the wall depicts three individuals following a gray-hooded figure into a range of mountains. They are followed by two hulking beasts a story tall and twice as long, skinned in plates of shimmering sapphire. Wow! One of those must be that thing I saw near the Silver Throne! Gurga-whatever its name was! Don! Gurgadon!

The final image on this wall depicts the gray leader and his fellows lying dead, while the image of the blue clad figure stands triumphant. His followers and the armored beasts are drawn in poses of worship and submission before their vanquisher. But what is that all about…?

The second wall's first image shows a proud woman displaying a vibrant emerald spear with many people knelt before her, hands widespread in stances of adoration and awe. The blade of the weapon shines brightly, reflecting off of several skulls and bones littered across the ground.

The same individual is shown atop a mountain in battle with one of the hulking, sapphire beasts from the first mural. The result of the combat is clear, with the emerald blade drawing rubies from the beast's defeated husk. So that’s how it died…

In the final vignette, gouts of yellow smoke seem to belch forth from its mouth, striking many bystanders dead while the heroine's fate remains undepicted. However, the leaves of the border look to have withered to a barely luminescent imperial topaz.

The third wall continues the heroine’s saga. So she survived! She is locked in combat with a monstrous thing, painted as a horrific fusion of human and animal features, with pale diamond skin bathed in onyx flame. It seems that in response to this struggle, the vines that make up the border are being consumed by the dark fire radiating from the abomination.

Wreathed around this scene is a larger conflict between armed warriors and a horde of emaciated horrors, looking more skeletal than human. Everything is illustrated in brutal detail with all the visceral imagery of war. A gold flecked tower is drawn in a state of collapse, falling into a canyon. Nearby, obsidian wolves and crows feast upon the corpses of the dead. It seems as though the female champion and her nemesis follow the golden tower, all of them falling into a pitch abyss at the bottom of a canyon, just below a leviathanic bridge.

However, the final image upon the wall depicts both the heroine and the monster still alive. The lower third of the image shows the adversary in a chamber deep beneath the earth, superimposed over a black void, chained and imprisoned. The heroine is shown with her weapon over her shoulder, walking into a desert that fades into the face of the barren stone wall. So, a history… but of what?

But a sudden realization comes upon her: she has a task to complete. Oh, yeah, I should go find the water valves. And thus, she leaves the mosaics, leaves the exploration, and returns to her duty.

Entering the cage, she opts to descend to the lower levels. Perhaps there, she can find what she seeks. The merest thought of descent is answered by the bodiless presence within the crystal, and Eidos is nearly thrown from her feet by the cage’s sudden movement as it begins to sink into the darkness below.