Chapter 23 #3
The kinetic bolts tore from her fingers, the recoil snapping her arms back.
The invisible force slammed into the chest plate of a Praetorian channeling his hammer into the floor.
The folded adamantine did not shatter, but the sheer kinetic transfer crushed the man inside it.
The heavy elite was blown backward off his feet, plummeting silently into the dark chasm.
Vael, stranded on the far side of the gap with the last two Praetorians, did not need a bridge to retreat. She used it to attack.
She leaped onto Riven’s golden geometric span, her iron legs hitting the magic with a resonant thrum. She charged across the glowing bridge, the Abyssal Cleaver raised high.
The remaining two Praetorians abandoned their attempt to shatter the room and turned to meet her. It was a fatal miscalculation.
Vael descended upon them with the wrath of a betrayed god. She swung the massive black halberd in a devastating, horizontal arc. The anti-magic blade sheared clean through the heavy adamantine armor at their waists, the metal offering no more resistance than wet paper against the hungry iron.
The top halves of the two heavy elites slid off their legs, their bodies hitting the amethyst floor in a horrific, simultaneous cascade of blood and ruined armor.
The amphitheater fell dead silent.
The acoustic vibrations ceased. The threat was entirely eradicated.
Riven pulled his smoking, blistered hands away from the floor.
The glowing, golden bridge of geometry instantly dissolved into fine mist, vanishing into the damp air.
Riven collapsed forward, his forehead resting against the cool, cracked purple crystal of the floor.
He was trembling violently, his breath coming in ragged, shallow gasps.
The crimson light beneath his skin faded back to a dull, bruised flicker.
He had held the line, but his mortal vessel was fraying at the seams.
Heavy, metallic footsteps approached him.
Vael stood over him, the Abyssal Cleaver dripping with dark blood. Her golden eyes were sharp, evaluating his physical state with grim pragmatism. She reached down, grabbing the thick leather collar of his duster, and hauled him effortlessly to his feet.
"You held the stone," Vael said, a rare, genuine note of respect coloring her metallic voice.
"I'm running out of wax," Riven muttered, wiping the blood from his eyes with the back of his sleeve.
He looked across the ruined, shattered expanse of the ancient amphitheater.
"We can't survive a war of attrition. Every spell is pulling from my own lifespan.
If Morne sends another squad, I won't be able to hold the floor. "
"Then we make sure he doesn't have the time to send another squad," Carys said.
The Lore-Keeper was standing at the far northern end of the geode dome. She had walked past the bleeding corpses of the Praetorians and was staring into a massive, arching tunnel that had been previously hidden by the shadows of the upper tiers.
Riven and Vael walked toward her, their boots crunching on the shattered purple crystal.
They reached the archway and looked up.
It was the Grand Ascent.
Carved from pure, flawless white marble, a colossal, spiraling staircase stretched upward into the absolute darkness.
The steps were incredibly wide, designed for processions of thousands.
Faint, dormant Eldric runes lined the pristine walls, completely untouched by the crude, parasitic blue cables of Spireheart Academy.
This was the original, sacred path the First Builders had used to ascend from the deeps to the surface of the world.
It led straight up through the Strata. It bypassed the aqueducts, the maintenance shafts, and the corrupted Nerve Centers. It led directly to the foundation of the high towers.
"The front door," Vael rumbled, her grip tightening on the haft of her halberd.
"They don't know it exists," Carys whispered, pushing her cracked glasses up her nose, her eyes wide with awe.
"The academy maps never documented the Grand Ascent. The entrance was sealed. Riven’s architectural edit in the centrifuge tunnel must have caused a seismic shift that unsealed the archway. "
Riven looked up the endless spiral of white marble.
He felt the crushing fatigue in his bones.
He felt the terrifying, erratic pulse of his own failing heart.
He was an Unattuned sweep who had seized the fire of the gods, and it was burning him alive.
But he looked to his left. Carys Moon-Spun, the timid scholar, stood with her chin raised, her hands curled into fists, wearing rings forged from the dungeon’s immune system.
He looked to his right. Vael of the Solar-Crest stood on legs of jagged, runic iron, wielding a blade that devoured magic, her golden eyes fixed on the path upward.
They were all present. They were all accounted for. The ledger of the deeps was balanced.
"Morne thinks we are drowning in the dark," Riven said, his voice dropping into a cold, lethal cadence that echoed off the ancient marble.
The First Architect stepped onto the bottom stair.
"Let's show the High Proctor what the foundation looks like when it rises."