Chapter 4: A Silence in the Song

  I ran until my lungs were on fire, until my legs felt like over-stressed pistons in their sockets. The waypoint the flute player had given me was a suggestion, a prescription. It vibrated in my head like a steady pulse, one point of unshakeable reference in a world that seemed designed to disorient. I did not know whether I was running from the Shepherd or from its monstrous flock, but the difference did not seem to matter much.

  The forest changed as I followed the signal. The ever-present, bioluminescent hum of the place started to thin, the air becoming cooler, losing its thick, living humidity. The glowing moss on the trees became patchy, then few, replaced by bare, dark wood. And then the drop was sudden: forest ceased to buzz, which was very disturbing, like walking through a photograph.

  After what seemed like an hour of this insane, cross-country scramble, the waypoint in my mind pulsed with a soft finality. I'd arrived.

  I skidded to a stop at the edge of a clearing, my breath fogging in the suddenly chilled air. Before me was a low stony hillock, a dull grey anomaly in the otherwise colorful forest. A dark jagged maw was cut into its side: a cave. It was a place characterized by absences. There was no glowing moss growing on the rocks. No strange, pulsing fungi were attached to the entrance. There was no sound coming from inside. It was a scar on the world, a patch of deep, profound black where the light and life of Aethelgard just . . . stopped.

  The Shepherd had referred to it as a Dead Spot. A silence in the song.

  My Kensho prickled. It was an area of metaphysical nullification.

  A place where the rules of this world: the Veridian Flow, as the Echo I'd find would later name it didn't apply. I didn't know if that made it safe or just a different kind of dangerous though, but it was my only option. I slipped inside.

  The silence was absolute. It pressed in my ears, a heavy weighted blanket. The air was dead still, with the taste of stale stone, and absolutely nothing else. My eyes, used to the constant twilight, had difficulty adjusting. A faint residual glow from the forest backlit the entrance painting the chamber in shades of deep grey. It was one large cavern, the walls amazingly smooth, as if melted into shape. And it wasn't empty.

  In the middle of the chamber I saw in my head. A dim, shimmering rune was suspended in the dead center of the chamber, defying gravity and casting a ghostly silver light on the damp walls, identical in nature to the waypoint that had led me here. It hung suspended in the cool, still air, pulsing with a soft, silvery light. It was a message in a bottle, thrown into the cosmic ocean by a former castaway. An Echo of Passage.

  A rush of something hot and strong went through me, something I didn't know I was missing: hope. I wasn't the first. I wasn't alone.

  I came near it with caution, the gentle light of the rune reflecting in my eyes. The knowledge of how to interact with it was already in my head, a core function of the Astrolabe. Attune. I did not reach out with my hand, but with my will; my eyes were on the shimmering glyph.

  The world dissolved, slid down gently into the haze of a stranger's memory

  Not words, It was a whisper of experience. A wave of deep weary relief, so strong it almost buckled my knees. The sharp, clean smell of ozone mixed with something like burnt sugar. A fleeting image of this very cave, but from the point of view of someone slumping against the far wall, wounded. And then, a stream of core concepts, sharp and clear, flowed right into my understanding.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Safe haven. Veridian Flow is annulled at this place. A blind spot in the world's perception. Good place to rest and mend. Lumen recovery is almost zero but safe from the Choir.

  The Choir. A chillingly perfect name for the forest's hyper-aware immune system. The Echo faded, leaving one last bit of data stamped on my memory: a faint resonance signature, a name.

  Elara, Wayfarer.

  I let out a shuddering breath. Elara. A Real Person, a Wayfarer like me. She'd been here. She'd survived. She'd left a light burning in the dark.

  As the last vestiges of her memory were fading from my mind, a strange new sensation began to build within me. It was a feeling of... fullness. A psychic weight sinking in my soul, made from the raw, potent experiences of the last few hours. Being ripped from my home. The surreal / silent flight along the Wayline. The mad pursuit with the creature I'd called Mr. Peepers. The horrifying encounter with the Shepherd and its monstrous Choir. Finding Elara's Echo.

  Damn, I thought something like an XP in a bar would appear right about now.

  It was a metaphysical residue, the crystallized essence of survival. The Astrolabe dubbed it Remembrance.

  And as the final drop of Elara's experience settled into me, my soul tipped over.

  A flash of light brilliant in my mind's eye; a supernova in my soul. My Astrolabe Schema burned, every rune and constellation blazing with blinding light. On the smooth, unbroken ring that recorded my journey the faint, silvery nebula of my accumulated Remembrance whirled inwards, faster and faster, until it contracted to one single point of intense light. The point flared out dumping the energy and the ring was left dark hungry for new experiences.

  [CONJUNCTION ACHIEVED]

  That word was felt. A deep, internal shift. A deep correspondence between the self and experience. It was the most satisfying 'level up' chime of the universe, played on the strings of my own soul.

  When the light grew dim, three glistening, free-floating motes of pure starlight appeared in the structure of my Astrolabe.

  [Starlight Points Awarded: 3]

  That word was felt. A deep, internal shift. A profound alignment of self and experience. It was the universe's most satisfying ‘level up’ chime, played on the strings of my own soul.

  The purpose of the points was as intuitive as breathing. They were the raw material of growth. My chance to reforge myself.

  I didn't have to think hard about it. I looked at my Schema, assessing the damage.

  My?Horizon was chilling at pathetic 4. That was?why the transition to this world had felt like being run through a trash compactor. I was?a glass cannon with a hole in the barrel. I “grabbed” one?of the Starlight motes with my mind. I?swept it over the inner star-chart and united it with the constellation of Mountain.

  [Horizon increased to 5]

  It hit me immediately. A heavy, internal settling. The lingering psychic jitters vanished. My body felt denser, less of the?brittle crystal and more of the hardened resin.

  Then I examined?the Chalice – Lumen. Now it was at?6, and nearly empty. Between?my flight and the Veil, I was spent. If I was going to survive,?I needed a bigger tank. I shoved the second mote?into the Chalice.

  [Lumen increased to 7]

  A pleasant warmth flowed into my belly, like a?growing capacity to hold more potential.

  One point left. My Egress (Speed) was already my highest stat at 12. I was fast enough. But as I looked at Elara's Echo again, I realized I had almost missed it. In the forest, I had almost missed the cues of the predators. Speed was useless if I was running blind. I needed to see more. I needed to understand the code.

  I guided the final mote to the Eye constellation – Kensho.

  [Kensho increased to 10]

  I dismissed the Schema with a thought; the image faded from my mind. It was a palpable shift. I sat up straighter. I breathed deeper. I was still Kaelen, still some kind of lost kid in a world that treated him like a virus. But I was tougher now. I had a sanctuary. And a choice.

  Control.

  My gaze fell at the shimmering Echo Elara had left behind. It had served its purpose, a simple warning and a guide to this safe house. But my Kensho, newly settled and sharpened by the Conjunction, was now calmer. Clearer.

  I looked at the Echo again, not just receiving its surface message, but analyzing its structure too.

  And I saw it. A flicker. A single, almost imperceptible anomaly in the rune's otherwise stable form. It was a knot in the thread, a bit of code intentionally hidden in the comments. It was a layer of information buried too deep for a casual glance, or a rookie with low stats, to catch.

  Elara had left a warning. No, She had left a secret too.