“It is time,” Gehnna says, speaking at the head of the gathered slugs, few of these ones exhibiting any elvish features. “We will travel together to the lower depths of our world. Along this journey you will see and hear things that you never would have thought possible.”

The mists are as thick today as they were the first time we came to this world and I can only make out as much as I can because I’m seeing it through the eyes of everyone here. Water dark as ink laps at the edge of the stone orb that contains the city where we’ve taken up residence.

“Today we walk through history, and at the end of this journey you will see a glimpse of our shared future. You need not be afraid, this is entirely safe, but the lessons you learn may fog your mind for some time after our return.

“Gather together, we will swim through these dark waters. Cling to these guiding lines, I’ll be here to help you if you get lost.”

The first of the slugs slides down from the stone city, clinging to a long rope. Others follow, twitching and wasting time as they reveal more than a little hesitance. Yet still, they march on.

Gehnna doesn’t threaten them, she doesn’t push them through any unreasonable means, but they still obey her. Not unlike humans, they’re social creatures and they’re not willing to break off from the group even though they’re scared. Most of them are stewing in dark thoughts, expecting only the worst from this journey, but they do not flee.

Just like Mr Slug from the other day, they’re worried about the supposed god at the centre of this world. They’re worried that they’ll be the first to die. That this is some trick and that those who returned aren’t the same people who left.

Yet still, they march on.

“How long can you girls hold your breath?” I ask.

“I can summon wind around me,” Vii says. “It’s not very efficient yet, but I can make my own air if I have to.”

“I can use my water magics to bring a bubble of air with me,” Adler says, “You don’t need to worry.”

“I have nothing,” Eshya says with a shrug.

“Then you can come with me,” I say. I’ve practised a little with my repellent skin and now I can reliably maintain a bubble of air around me. More importantly, I can keep it from affecting some things, like my clothes, or in this case Eshya. “I won’t be using much of my air anyway, I still need to practice using my new mana drive Skill.”

“That sounds like fun,” Eshya says, holding onto me as we slide into the dark waters and float along the guiding line set out for us. A bubble of air coats me and, due to the pressure created by pushing away the water, it follows me instead of racing up to the surface.

Along with that, while using my annihilation magic and my new version of the swimming Skill, I can easily control my descent through the oceans where we swim.

The darkness here is complete and all but impenetrable. Even my sharpened senses can find no glimmer of light in these depths. Even floating through space there are stars shining, distant suns and galaxies making themselves known. Down here, there is nothing. Even the monsters are long gone.

“Quite the place, isn’t it?” Eshya says, holding me around the waist as we float on through the nothingness. “Not somewhere I’d like to make into a home.”

“Vii has been trying to figure out how to place a marker here to teleport to later,” I say. “Mostly for the practice.”

“Do you want a portal to this place?” Eshya asks. “I mean this is a good place to be away from everyone, and everything, and pretend that you’re the only being in existence.”

“Sounds like hell.”

“I thought you’d like it.”

“You think I’m a narcissist?” I ask.

“Well, you do want to become the most powerful being in all existence because you can’t handle the thought of someone being stronger than you.”

“That’s not narcissism.”

“Then what is it?” She asks, squeezing me tight.

“What about you with the soldier thing?” I ask, deflecting.

“I want to be a good soldier because it means that my life and my talents have meaning and value, not because I need to be more powerful than everyone else.”

We cling to each other as we float through the waters that seem to go on forever. Just how deep are we going? How far until we reach this goal and this sleeping, giant.

“I want to be in control,” I say. “I just want to be able to protect the people and the things that I care about. So long as someone else is stronger, then they can take from us.”

“There’ll always be someone stronger, or at least someone capable of taking from you,” Eshya says. “I mean you’re here planning on killing gods. Even when you become more powerful there will be people where you are now, with just the right abilities to take you down.”

“I’m going to get killed by math-man, am I? The only power more dangerous than annihilation—subtraction,” I say with a laugh.

“I’m serious, you know,” Eshya says. “You can’t keep us safe forever. Someday, something will happen that you can’t do anything about.”

“I… don’t think I’m allowed to believe that,” I say. “If I start thinking that, then what’s the point of any of this? What’s the point in fighting?”

“To enjoy the moment,” Eshya says, “and to make the moment last.”

I can’t accept that. I won’t. No end will come for us. We will be immortal, and this moment too will never end.

The lead slug breaks through into somewhere beyond the darkness and it doesn’t take long for us to catch up. We break through a barrier, holding the waters flow from the inside of another stone city. The slugs in front of us are shivering and shaking the water from their mucous covered skin as they take in the sights of this new city.

It’s different from the last one, the lights glowing in a deeper blue rather than the green from their home. The stone walls are carved with the same symbol over and over again in slight variations, but it seems more crazed than artful. The intents behind them lost as even Chip seems unable to understand the meaning within them, and there is meaning.

While the support device cannot read the words themselves in a proper conceptual basis, it does confer something much simpler.

Fear, but not of the usual flavour.

No word can properly match the concept drawn into these violent swirls. Fear, hope, anticipation, and a deep and unsettling reverence, as if it is some religious symbol for a godly being. Yet, it is fear that is strongest of all these emotions.

Vii and Adler pop in after us, seeming none the worse for wear, though they do borrow my cleansing stone to wipe away the water. Even dripping off of them the water is dark as ink.

“What is this place?” Vii asks, taking in the writing on the walls with wide eyes.

“This is the ancestral home of our people,” Gehnna says, flowing in after us. As soon as she’s joined us a massive shudder quakes the city, and my stomach drops as we fall.

“There’s nothing to be worried about, this is as it should be,” Gehnna says, her words not as calming as she intends them to be. She instead focuses on the symbol carved into the wall, she smiles affectionately, tracing it with a finger.

“This is spinning stone, the same as where our people live now, but larger and deeper below the surface of this world. This is the first city, before even the Mason family carved stone with their acid, we were here.”

The other slugs are too frightened to ask questions of their own, the sight while intriguing cannot dispel the reality of the situation that we’re in now. Ancient homes, dark gods, and so much else. It’s too much.

These people just want a conventional life, they want to live happily and enjoy the company of their peers. They don’t want to be heroic adventurers uncovering ancient secrets and fighting off terrible evils. The most they expect from their lives is relationship drama or the occasional unfortunate death.

“Why did you bring us here?” I ask as the others take in the messages around them. The symbol, made of interlocking curves, seems more a warning than anything else.

“We need to know these people. Only by understanding them can we understand why they chose to do what they did, and in that way, we might be in a place to make informed choices for ourselves.”

“And what is this symbol on the walls?” Vii asks. “It feels… bad.”

“I’m glad you noticed,” Gehnna says, though it seems rather impossible to not see the maddened scratchings that cover every surface.

“These are words that aren’t words, concepts so pure that they can only inspire vague emotion from the translation. You will come to understand these messages when the pilgrimage is done. When you understand what they mean.”

“Ancient knowledge that will twist us, corrupt us?” I ask.

“All knowledge changes us,” Gehnna replies in a whisper that carries through the empty hall.

She leads us through the halls deeper into the stone world, following the blue lights into the city beyond. This place isn’t designed the same as the city above, and I’m guessing that it’s spinning more like a teacup ride than a rotisserie.

The levels are carved out in circular floors, with a deep gap falling between to reveal the layers underneath. From the slight curve where we stand, I can tell that the city must be massive, and Gehnna opens her arms wide to let us take it all in.

“This is a hollow city, empty but for the ghosts that once inhabited it. They still remember and sometimes wonder these streets again, but not today. In this world, our people knew safety and luxury but it was never taken for granted.”

Her speech continues as she walks us through the haunted streets of a dead city. There are shops, homes, and all other sorts of things. She shows us to stadiums and theatres, and other places for activities that make no sense to us. Sports that haven’t been played for millennia, movies whose actors are long since dead, and interactive games that are more advanced than anything I’ve ever seen.

“We sought to reach out beyond, to bring this same peace to the world beyond us. We hunted violent beasts, and we made new homes when our numbers grew. We expanded throughout the world, and we did not stop, not until we were forced.

“Not until the beast came upon us. A monster too large, and too powerful.

“The great beast swam through the dark waters of this world eating everything and leaving nothing in its wake. It swallowed our colonies whole, and even our greatest warriors died trying to face it. We could not beat the beast.

“Power in numbers means nothing in the face of such concentrated violence as that beast could perpetrate on us. We were lost, and we knew it. Yet we did not give in. We did not surrender to the apathy that tempted us.

“We found a solution,” She says. “No, in truth we found several options. We sent people away to other worlds, to survive away from the beast, but even then the beast would one day consume the stars themselves. We could raise a warrior to fight against the beast on equal terms, but the pain of incorporating mana into a person’s mind at the rate that would be needed… all who tried, became twisted. Their minds broke.

“Instead, we found a solution more… elegant. A way to uplift us all. To bring us all into the light beyond this world.”

“We call it unification.”

The theatre behind her comes alive with images and words slowly making sense, but she speaks over it.

“Our strength spread out is not enough, but together we would be more than capable of taming this beast,” She says, “So we made ourselves one. Our flesh bound together, our minds networked, and our mana compiled and slowly condensed as we shed the unnecessary flesh that we had no need for.

“Unity beat the beast, and ever since we have grown. We are now facing one of the greatest challenges of all, seeking evolution into a state even stronger, so that we can face the beasts that even now wonder the space between the stars.

“Soon, you too will meet with Unity.”

“You’re going to absorb us too?” I ask, setting some more annihilation spells into my bones.

“For but a moment,” Gehnna says. “Just for a small moment, to witness what it is that we offer. To see unity for yourself and judge from experience, not ignorant fear. You will be returned to your current state afterwards, we will not force you to become part of us.”

“Why should we trust you?”

“Trust isn’t…” Gehnna lowers her head with a sad frown on her lips. “There is no way to gain your trust. This is too much, too strange, too alien. Only by experiencing this will you know that we mean you no harm. I’m sorry for the deceit thus far, just please have patience and see for yourselves who we are.”

“I don’t see how we have a choice,” I reply, going through my murder plan one more time. This sounds too much like a bad idea wrapped up in good intentions, and I do not want to become part of whatever this unity is.

Would it mean we have to have a council meeting with all the other minds to decide what we’re having for lunch? No thanks.

“I am sorry,” Gehnna says once more, her expression too honest. From what I can read of her mind, the hurt she feels is real, and she really does feel awful about springing this on us.

“It will be some time before we arrive, feel free to explore this city, but please don’t damage anything.” She says, leaving us alone as she retreats into a back room, crying quietly. She understands why we doubt her and her ‘Unity’, but it seems as though that doubt still wounds her.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Stats and Skills

~Mana Form:

Current mana density: 42,391 / 60,892 units

Current mana volume: 21,073 / 30,271 shards

Mana volume at crystallisation density (Max. mana volume):

Kyra: 30,271 shards

Kyra’s armour: 20,777 shards

Kyra’s throne: 1,109,298 shards

~Forms

Mana Canon

-Annihilation Heart (Adapted)

-Blood Fuel (Adapted)

-Bone Magic Storage (Adapted)

-Nail Shifters (50,000 mana shards)

Dancer

-Flash Nerves (Adapted)

-Quick Perception Mind (Adapted)

-Burst Reflex Muscles (35,000 mana shards)

-Layered space Muscles (80,000 mana shards)

Turtle

-Rebinding Tissue (Adapted)

-Catalyst Sweat Glands (140,000 mana shards)

-Repulsive Skin (Adapted)

-Prehensile hair (Adapted)

-Fatty Tissue Blood Storage (100,000 mana shards)

Investigator

-Wide eyes (Adapted)

-Wide ears (Adapted)

-Sharp nose (Adapted)

Misc.

-Clean bowels (Adapted)

-Mana Drive (Adapted)

~Favourited Skills:

Magic:

-Annihilation Magic (Customised)

-Fire Magic (Functional)

-Space magic (Broken)

-Force magic (Functional)

-Ice magic (Broken)

-Wind magic (Broken)

Movement:

-Hand-to-hand casting (Functional)

-Mana surge movement (Functional)

-Stealth (Functional)

Senses:

-Eyes of an Empire (Customised)

-Combat Awareness (Functional)

-Watchmen (Functional)

-Hidden bug (Mastered)

-De-tagging (Mastered)

-Anti-stealth sight (Mastered)

Special:

-Spirit Transformation (Broken)

-Conformity (Broken)

-Training mana form (Functional)