The unexplored tunnels of the Nexus were as old as history itself, first excavated in ancient times. The ancient people discovered a convergence of several seismic power lines, which they desired for some unknown purpose.
It wasn’t until a century and a half ago that Eryndor mana engineers decided the valley and the convergence beneath it created the ideal conditions for a school of magic, and so the Academy was built.
The Academy ran on the land’s great energy, pulling mana from the air and water which flowed through the valley. But the deep earth structure, the Nexus, dug down into the power lines and fed on them. A dirty yet direct approach to accessing the magical power of the land, the Nexus was like an engineered parasite siphoning a small part of the immense mana flow from deep beneath the surface.
Evren could feel that power, pulsing through his bones as he grazed the wall of the passage while walking along. But the mana filling his body wasn't his number one concern at that moment.
He was hopelessly lost.
Two junctions was all it took for him to lose his way. His mind had been replaying the events at the dance. The music, the dancing figure of Veronica, the piercing gaze of Lyra, the students laughing at him. Why had he run away? He had done nothing wrong.
But now that he was facing ancient stone walls and glowing protection runes, he felt a different kind of panic take hold.
Evren was like most support casters, in that he was familiar with the little part of the Nexus that contained the dorms, his courses and the gathering halls. But most casters didn’t travel by themselves, and they definitely didn’t walk down unmarked passages carved into the bedrock of the valley.
Once or twice he backtracked, trying to retrace his steps, but all the passages looked the same. The air was stale and heavy. Only the occasional cryptic wall hanging or suspended incense burner helped him to differentiate one passage from the next. The burners, mysteriously, were still smoking, producing scents of ages long gone.
Evren had been walking for at least an hour when he noticed a small set of footprints running from a side passage and leading down the broad hall. He was on a slowly turning artery that he imagined might loop all the way around, and may perhaps come full circle back to where he started. The footprints, though very small, were human and they looked fresh. There were more than one set of prints, but they were all similar and they ran in both directions from the looks of it. Someone had been travelling back and forth on this path.
The question is, which direction led to the surface?
Then, a small noise echoed down the passageway ahead of him. A cough, or a similar noise. Something man-made. He rushed forward, not quite running, following the path adding his footprints in the layer of dust.
He’d heard of maintenance crews sent to the lower shafts. Teams of casters sent to inspect the ancient wards and perform any repairs that were needed. But he had also heard that whole teams of maintenance workers were never to be seen or heard from again.
Evren hoped to all the Gods that he wasn’t following a someone who was just as lost as he was, wandering down a winding descending hall that would end him up in the pits of hell or in some other world entirely.
Oh wait, the footprints veer off into this passage, and there’s a marker over the archway.
Evren cast a candle spell, lighting up the door marker, drawn to it like a drowning man to a life preserver. The ancient markings were dust-covered but still easy to read. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a number or indication of which zone he was in, which all modern tunnels had included. What it did say was much more enigmatic:
The Hall of Records
What in the world was the Hall of Records? Was it some sort of archive? Evren hesitated, as this did not sound like it was the best way to get back to the surface. But that’s when he heard it.
A small voice, which sounded like a girl or a young child, was singing or talking away somewhere within the darkness ahead of him. Evren, against his better judgement, followed the sound of the voice.
The dark passage led to a dimly lit chamber. At first glance, it looked like a library of sorts, or at least that how it appeared to him. Rows upon rows of shelves, half-filled with scrolls of paper and papyrus. The air was dry and cool, with the scent of old leather and cedar. It must be a magical preservative. This chamber appeared to be as old as the Academy itself.
Evren drifted through the hall, which appeared to be a series of vaulted, high-ceilinged chambers. He was passively observing like he’d received free admission to a museum he hadn’t really wanted to visit. His mind was still on the voice, and trying to narrow down where it was coming from. The most interesting things he saw were the softly glowing sigils and runes that were regularly distributed on the walls throughout the complex. They were containment runes, which were different from the warding sigils of the outer passageways. But what were they trying to contain?
Once again, he found he’d been lost in thought when he should have been paying attention to his surroundings, because just as he’d entered a new room, a scream rang out from right in front of him, startling him. In front of him, he saw a poor girl scared half to death.
He had just entered a room that was dominated by thick slabs of stone, each as high as a table and each layered with over-sized rectangles of paper weighted or pinned down to be flat. Here, beside the closest table, reading by the light of a single candle stood a most incongruitous girl. She was small, like a child. But the maturity of her body and her short stylish black hair made it clear she was much older.
“What are YOU doing here?” she demanded. She had stopped screaming and seemed to be examining him. At the same time, she moved behind the table she was standing in front of, obviously putting some distance between herself and Evren.
Evren considered for a second that he appeared without a word from the darkness. She was right to be terrified.
“Me? Well, I took a wrong turn when I left the dance party, and I’ve been walking around for hours. Somehow I ended up here…”
The girl ‘eep’ed in fear when his broad gesture swung in her direction. Then she looked him up and down and her fear seemed to subside. Her eyes widened in recognition. “I know you! You’re that junior caster… Dia’s brother.”
Evren cringed at the mention of his older sister. Was this girl in her third year, as well?
“Yeah, I’m Dia’s brother,” he acknowledged, waving dismissively. “I’m sure she’s told you stories, but honestly, I’m not a bad guy.”
The girl came around the table again, slowly approaching his position. Evren, not wanting to frighten her again, didn’t move a muscle, but he took a side glance at her small figure. The girl was dressed in casual clothes; a cut-off black hoodie and a comfy pair of shorts. She was tiny, but her curvy hips and slightly protruding belly made it clear that she was not a little kid. Her hoodie had decorative cat ears on it, and as she moved across the room, Evren noted that she moved with the grace of a cat, as well.
“Hmmmm… As far as I recall, Dia said you’re a good caster. She wondered why your partner up and left you,” the girl said in a faint voice. She didn’t sound like she liked him being here.
He sighed and circled around the table to give her a little space and so he could get a better look at her. By the Gods, the way her face was shining in the candlelight… delicate features with a cute round face. She looked like she didn't get enough sleep, or spent too much time reading by candlelight. Despite that, she was beautiful.
“Who are you? What are you doing here?” he asked, looking to the pile of documents that she’d been studying. They were maps, piled high on the table. Maps! And they looked as old as the rest of the Hall of Records. The one she had been examining was written on a cracked length of sheepskin.
“Don’t touch that,” she exclaimed, rushing to the sheepskin and rolling it up carefully. “My name is Mae, and I’m here because I love maps.”
“What are all these?” Evren asked, flipping through the pile of ancient papyrus, to which the girl replied with another ‘eep’ and swatted his hands away.
“Don’t touch any of these! A gentle touch is required, otherwise you might damage the delicate fibers.”
“Are these maps of the Nexus? Is there a map that could show me how to get out of here?”
The girl still looked concerned about his being there, but a hint of excitement sparkled in her eye as well.
“These are maps of everywhere. Well, everywhere in Eryndor… Everywhere in Eryndor within the past 1000 years.”
Her tiny arm shot out, pointing at a table to Evren’s left.
“That table has maps of the Nexus, both the old and the new.”
Evren stepped over to the table she indicated and tried to take in what he was seeing. There were a lot of faded charts and blueprints with various depths indicated. He wasn’t an engineer, and he wasn’t even much of a reader, so the charts didn’t mean very much to him. All he could discern was that each level of the Nexus resembled a wheel with wide circular corridors and a number of spokes going to the center, which he assumed was the Nexus’ surface.
He looked up from the maps, excitedly, and saw that Mae was gone. He hadn’t even heard her leave.
“Wait, Mae. Don’t go,” he called, ready to rush after her. But then her voice sounded from within the room. She was still there with him, but he couldn’t see her.
“Sorry, but I’ve got to go, Evren. Don’t take anything out of the Hall and don’t shuffle the maps around. They’re in a very specific order.”
“Wait, I don’t understand these maps… Are you invisible?”
“Sorry, got to go!” she called again, this time her voice was distant, from the next room.
“Wait, I don’t know how to get back to the surface.”
“I’ll draw some arrows on the wall for you to follow, but please don’t start coming here… this is my place to be alone. Bye!” Those were the last words he heard echoing through the Hall of Records.
Evren had a million other things to ask, but she was gone, and he was alone with a map that indicated the Nexus as it appeared… 200 feet beneath the surface? Also, how was he supposed to look at the other maps underneath this one, if he couldn’t change their order?
Hmmph.
He spent a few more minutes puzzling the 200 foot map, wondering if that was the level at which he was currently located, before his attention returned to the Hall of Records itself.
His hand went to the wall, and he could feel the warmth that the ancient symbols on the walls were still producing. Still glowing and still in effect, the runes were all slightly different, as if they were a different orientation of the same containment spell.
Hmmm… perhaps if he could determine the direction of just two or three of them, he’d be able to determine their purpose, or at the very least, locate the center of their containment field.
So, Evren set to work, examining runes in each of the rooms and following their mystic energy. It wasn’t that hard in the end to track down their focal point. He smiled to himself. Perhaps he should train in Wards. His father had specialized in warding for many years.
Then he recalled that he had no partner to support him at the Academy and frowned. No warding for him…
The focal point was in a small alcove that was built into the rear wall of what seemed to be the deepest part of the Hall of Records. The air hung heavy and still here. No books, scrolls, or maps were stored here. Instead there was only a monument.
Planted on a chest-high pillar, it was a life-sized stone bust of a woman. The bust was old and cracked, making it hard to determine who it was being honored. It depicted her shoulders, face, and long flowing hair, but part that captivated him the most were its eyes. Instead of faded rock, the eyes’ irises were two finely cut gemstones, bright red and set deep into the bust. Each one had a heart carved into it. There was something very compelling about her eyes.
“Oath Mother… is that you?” he asked, stepping forward, he was feeling dazed.
Evren didn’t know why he did it, but he decided to cast a Fixing spell on this age-old relic. His sensible side, which Evren nearly always paid close attention to, was telling him that casting spells on warded or contained relics was a bad idea. But there was another voice telling him to go ahead and do it. That he would be rewarded for his efforts.
It was the second voice, a stern and motherly voice, that Evren decided to listen to at that time.
There was no way to really fix the bust. After all, the nose was broken off and some of the woman’s curling locks were missing as well, but the cracks could be sealed, and the scarred surface could be polished clear. He very carefully began to FIX the bust. His hands softened the surface just enough for it to flow and reshape.
Strangely enough, the eyes seemed to have absorbed some of his mana and they began to glow with an inner light. Evren was so committed to the repairs, so singularly focused in his work, that he didn’t even notice the runes on the walls had all begun to glow brighter, giving off a vibe that they were ‘containing’ as hard as they could, but that something did not want to stay contained any longer.
Evren had only the slightest indication that something had gone terribly wrong. The mouth of the bust, which had been sculpted in a serious line, melted into a gleeful, wicked grin. The reds of her eyes shot out like lasers catching him square in his eyes, just as the runes all around the Hall of Records hit their limit.
All at once, the runes detonated, the energy that they had sapped away in the containment process, spilling out in a single moment. The force of the combined mana explosions was enough to bring down the walls and ceiling of the Hall of Records, shaking the entire foundation of the Nexus and burying the body of Evren along with hundreds of years of history.
But Evren's soul was no longer a part of this world. He was already gone... somewhere else.