Elder Cultivator

“This would be faster if I could see the formation directly,” Catarina commented.

“No.” Timothy’s answer was instant and firm.

“What? I know better than to tear apart Everheart’s ego-statue to find what’s underneath. I was just saying it would be easier. If I really was going to do it, it would have happened a week ago.”

“It’s odd that Everheart would have created this grand tomb and returned to Ceretos to leave behind some sort of control plate,” Hoyt remarked. They were as secure as Catarina could make their conversation, which meant they’d have to have some sort of formation grandmaster actively watching them to get anything. There might be some that would come to Everheart’s Tomb, but they might be smarter than that.

“I don’t fully understand the rules involved in going between the upper and lower realms,” Catarina said, “But I don’t believe Everheart is in the habit of leaving anything behind anywhere. And I don’t think he would have left it untrapped, either.”

“Wasn’t that formation plate super trapped at some point?” Alva asked.

“At some point… certainly,” Catarina agreed. “Long enough in the past that they seem to have crumbled before Everheart’s time.”

“That man was very busy,” Hoyt said. “It’s hard to believe how much he accomplished.”

“We could likely do the same, if we didn’t care about present or future consequences. He made enemies with everyone, but got away with boatloads of resources that allowed him to reduce the time required to create things. With enough raw materials, you can just slap together something like this quickly.”

“This being…” Alva looked around.

“This Tomb.”

“I don’t believe you,” Alva crossed her arms.

“If I had the resources and a vast supply of energy,” Catarina said, “I could do this in ten or twenty years. Before monsters were seeded in and people were getting in the way. Of course, that’s with the caveat that I was building atop something else. Like whatever’s down there,” Catarina gestured. She rotated the formation plate in her hand, feeling the fluctuations in energy as she attempted to control something she couldn’t see. “I believe I have done all I can here for now. We can’t remain forever, after all.”

“I can send to be picked up,” Hoyt said. “I’m sure a batch of people would be happy to get off-world.”

“It will be better to ride along with another group. I believe Alva was looking into the options?”

“Oh, yeah. I had Vari take care of that.” Alva gestured.

“Oh! Yes.” Vari collected herself. “There’s a group in the Gardens returning to the Harmonious Citadel next month…” the collective gazes of the surrounding people made her swallow nervously. “But of course as lady Alva has expressed her desire to not go directly back to the Harmonious Citadel for some reason, I looked into alternatives. The Library has a pickup in one week. Time will be a bit tight to get there, and the price is rather high. Otherwise there’s a ship landing on the far side of the Labyrinth. But that one’s going to the Bloodsoaked Nebula so I-”

“That’s the one,” Timothy said. Catarina nodded.

“I would like to stay out of conflict zones,” Hoyt agreed.

“But the Bloodsoaked Nebula-”

“Hasn’t had any major battles there in centuries,” Alva said. “Right?”

“... It doesn’t sound like a nice place.”

Perhaps it wasn’t, but it was a step closer to Nuvater, and was a step further from the Harmonious Citadel. Further from the Dark Ring too, but Hoyt wasn’t restricted in where he could go. He was working with them on some level, but he didn’t have to dive headfirst into the conflict with the Harmonious Citadel immediately.

Vari sighed, “I still don’t want to go to somewhere I know millions of people died. All the energy is corrupted and gross. But we’d have to get through the Labyrinth anyway, and that’s got some of the most deadly traps and… nobody seems to care about that.”

“We care,” Catarina said. “But we’re also confident in our abilities.”

“So is everyone else,” Vari pointed out. “And half of them die.”

“Then we’d best ensure we’re part of the correct half,” Catarina said. She wasn’t going to mention that herself and Timothy had already made up for the numbers. Vari probably wouldn’t like to know they killed people from the Harmonious Citadel- and besides, that wasn’t how statistics worked. Though it certainly wasn’t fully random either.

The labyrinth was a long and winding deathtrap, but it covered about half a band around the whole planet. The Great Hall was approximately near its middle on one side, which meant that going around involved traveling about half of the planet. Moving along the outside walls wasn’t necessarily safer than inside the Labyrinth, as many other cultivators took the same route… and might be interested in finding loot conveniently on people instead of in deathtraps.

There were openings at various points along either side of the Labyrinth, so if they found a good route passing through would be much quicker. The paths never stayed the same for long, so there were no maps. Only general themes and signs of danger that were oft-repeated. Of course, those were just the signs that people survived to tell about- perhaps there were unknown dangers that were the source of the various deaths.

As they approached their selected entrance, they were met by a young man with deep black hair, expertly styled and sharply contrasting with his nearly pure white skin and clothes. “You’re in luck!” The young man said. “A new challenge has just begun!”

“Oh wow it’s been so long,” Alva said.

“What do you mean?” Vari asked.

“It’s just another projection of Everheart.”

“But we haven’t seen any…?”

“Don’t worry about that,” Alva pat Vari on the head, though they were basically the same height. “Yo, Everheart! What’s the challenge?”

“The challenge is to collect these,” Everheart pulled out an orb, seemingly made of swirling colors. It first appeared to be glass or crystal, but as the rainbow twisted and folded into patterns it was clear it couldn’t be any sort of normal material. “Each labyrinth orb is worth a number of points. The group or individual with the highest number of points at the end of the event wins.”

“What do they win?” Vari asked.

“A huge pile of cr- carefully handpicked equipment,” Everheart said with a smile. “Enough to make you emperors.”

“I could have already been a emperor,” Alva shrugged. “But sure. How do we get them?”

“By completing trials… or being fortunate enough to stumble across them. And I’m sure you can think of other ways.”

“Can we have that one?” Alva asked.

Everheart folded his arms in front of him. “That would be completely unfair to the other participants, would it not?”

“Since when did you care about that?” Alva tilted her head. “Can we have it or not?”

“If you want it,” Everheart said, dropping into a stance. “You’ll have to take it from me.”

“Okay.” Even before the word was done, Alva had drawn and fired her bow, a Spirit Arrow heading straight for the orb held in Everheart’s hand. He barely managed to pull it out of the way, and the arrow went off into the distance. “Ugh, whatever. Let’s go.” Alva spun around, and the others followed her.

“Are we just giving up on that…?” Vari asked.

“I don’t want to waste energy,” Alva said as they began to walk into the labyrinth, the walls deceptively high and the path being a good ten meters across as far as they could see- with branching paths up ahead.

Then the orb bounced off the wall next to Alva, and she reached out to snatch it. She looked over he shoulder to see if Everheart would give chase, but he seemed to be content with cursing her under his breath. The arrow’s return path had knocked it out of his hand when he wasn’t ready… but Alva imagined he wasn’t trying that hard. Of course, he was also focused on their group walking away from him, which was the point.

-----

Everheart watched the strange group go. They knew him, but had never been here before. Not just the Labyrinth, with this particular projection of him. The entire Tomb. He kept track of such things. He also thought he recognized something about the cultivation technique four of them practiced. Had he met someone like that in the past? There were so many. Maybe they were just bluffing. But they could be telling the truth. The original would want to know about this.

Either way, it would be fun to put some special encounters in their path. Serves them right for that girl snatching away his orb. He didn’t have a backup. He really wasn’t supposed to give it away, but it didn’t matter. Anything that could be done was fine. Cheating was a word those who couldn’t handle the real world used to explain why they lost.

-----

“Why is gravity sideways all of the sudden?” Vari yelled as she found herself falling into the hail of darts instead of ducking under it. Everyone else was also being pulled towards the wall.

“At least it isn’t upside down,” Hoyt said.

“Don’t give him any ideas!” Alva complained.

A few moments later with a flurry of movement, they all found themselves on the wall, basically unscathed. Vari was curled up into a ball, but her barrier had served her fine, preventing enough of the incoming weapons. Timothy had helped with others, and Alva had shot the incoming wall to set off traps early, before they landed. Smoke and the aftersmell of lightning filtered around them along with piles of metal, but they were fine.

“Is this going to stop or…?” Timothy tapped his toe on the wall/floor.

The answer seemed to be that it would not any time soon. So when they came to their next turn, the option was to try climbing or drop down quite a distance. They could also try to jump across.

“It’s not too far,” Hoyt said. “The problem will be if there are other obstacles. Or hidden enemies.”

“Pretty sure the walls across the way will crush us,” Alva said. “Or something on that scale, at least.”

“Down has too many formations to handle in freefall,” Catarina said. “So we can try up where there are…”

“Snakes,” Alva said. “And probably some wall-crawlers. The trees give some good mobility options, though. Just don’t fall.”

All of them took in the sideways forest above them, or perhaps it was more of a grove. An intentionally planted one at that, with somewhat regular patterns.

“A group’s coming up behind us,” Alva cautioned. “So we should hurry to make a choice.”

“Up it is,” Timothy said. “Let’s go.” He turned to Vari, “Need help?”

“I can do this,” Vari said stubbornly. She leapt upwards at an angle, covering the dozen meters between her and her destination. She softly landed on the side of a tree, large enough to be a comfortable platform.

Timothy looked at Alva and shrugged, “I’m not sure why she likes you.”

“Hey, I’m nice.”

“Not to her.”

With some effort, they all landed on trees of their own, just in time for the local inhabitants to begin their attack. It was rather odd, as both trees and snakes appeared to be functioning with standard gravity.

Some of the snakes were small- the length of an arm at best- but the amount of upper energy they contained was sufficient for them to puncture energy defenses, at least long enough to inject venom. As for what such venom might do, nobody was interested in testing it. Alva was focused on taking them down before they got close, but there were too many for her to take out alone.

The group used their footing on the sides of trees to maneuver, careful to not destroy what was holding them up as they attacked. They cut down their enemies as they approached, a wall of fire near the ‘ground’ encircling some of the trees keeping them at bay, courtesy of Hoyt. Vari flung barriers around in a way she had not previously demonstrated- using them as walls to redirect the possible paths of the slithering creatures.

The battle was going well, but many legged creatures that appeared to be more claw and limb than anything else were coming from ‘above’. And the group of cultivators coming up from behind them seemed to be standing on the floor normally. For the moment they were observing curiously, but it was impossible to say what they might do if they found an opening.