The Dark Citadel of Shaloz
Ren, Miri, and Axia treked south in the deep sulfur tinted snow, following the black needle in the sky. There wasn't much said between the three as they got closer. Eventually the crossed a ridge and were able to see the bottom of the tower and it was in full view. Ren pushed forward, but didn't get far before she was stopped by Axia.
"Ren, that tower is as big as an entire city." Axia said, "Not even the Mesa City can compare to that thing. We should go back and--"
"I have been to my uncle's city," Ren interrupted, "I have also been to the towers of Castor and Pollux. This tower doesn't compare to them."
"Still, it would take us weeks to search the whole thing." Axia said back.
"Especially since there's only three of us!" Miri added, "Unless you know exactly where the nest is, we aren't getting there before we run out of food, or air."
"Hmmm, we'll manage." Ren said before she continued walking towards the tower, "There's a reason I only took the elves of the group."
"What reason could that possibly be?" Miri asked. Ren didn't answer.
Dark Citadels
Built across The Moon Izi during the Silver Age many tens of thousands of years ago, the dark citadels were the homes of the humans of that age. As a testament to their skill, power, and technology, they built these towers into the heavens and they built these towers to last. Izi is a very violcanic world and many towers have been buried in miles of lava, while others stand defiantly against the elements, showing very little signs of wear over the many millennia they have been standing.
Despite being constructed mainly out of Obsidian, the blackened faces of these colossal structures are highly reflective and are visible against the yellow-white snowfields. Even in the blackest night, they reflect starlight and the light of the moon's Planet Tarsuros and would still be clearly visible. The towers were built like this on purpose as the builders wanted all to see what they were capable of.
The towers were glorious acheivements of what the Silver Race were capable of. The towers produces a wealth of resources and products for the rest of the Olimian Empire. Today, they are mostly empty, the residents either moved underground after the Cataclysm, or have been transformed into Nameless Horrors that hate all life. The wealth and secrets of these towers have never been fully explored by anyone since.
The Dark Citadel of Shaloz
Height: 1800 meters
Width at base: 400 meters
Original population: 10,000
Current population: -unknown-
Width at base: 400 meters
Original population: 10,000
Current population: -unknown-
Construction started: 416 kSA
Constructed ended: 421 kSA
Power Source: Sapphire Generator
Primary Export: Iridium Ore
Constructed ended: 421 kSA
Power Source: Sapphire Generator
Primary Export: Iridium Ore
Grand Entrance
In its prime, the entrance to the tower would have been like a busy city highway. Flying vehicles would be going in and out of the massive entrance while people would be walking down the massive set of stairs in front of the entrance. Thousands of people from neighboring towers would be passing by and even the busiest cities on current day Vreathe would have trouble comparing to the amount of things happening here.
Day 1
Day 4
Day 5
Day 7
Day 1
I'm on another world! This is amazing and terrifying! I accepted the mercanery contract to guard some scientists who said they were going to study Phoenix birds. I never would have thought that my first day on the job would have me drinking a potion of lava breathing and them swimming through a Lava Lake to end up on another world!
Day 4
Nothing much has happened over the last few days on this world. Everything smells like sulfur. I swear I'll never taste things the same again. The research team appears to have found their birds to study, so all is well. I have noticed some movement near the lava flows, but whenever I go investigate all I see are rocks. Something isn't right...
Day 5
I hate being proven right! We were attacked by Magma Wolves. We retreated to a large black tower. We spent several minutes debating whether to go in or not before the wolves attacked us again. I stayed behind to fight them off so the research team could get to the tower. After all, this is why I got paid, right?
Day 7
Cold... Can't Breathe.... Hungry.... Leg, shattered... Heh, this is how it ends... At least I get to pass away under such a beautiful sight. The world above me appears like Tazil himself is going to bless me before I go. I hope my soul can find its way to the World Tree when I make my last breath...
This journal is covered in frost and took some time to open. The delicate pages are well worn with the passage of time but the ink is still clearly visible. the inside cover inidicates it was owned by one of the original members of the research expedition to the Moon Izi some 200 years ago.
The inside isn't much different from the outside: Frozen and covered in ice. The Grand hall is gigantic in size. Some of the largest castles in Vreathe would fit in here and still ahve room left over. There are remains of some crashed vehicles here, and there are cargo containers littering the floor. Every so often a frozen skeleton is visible sticking out of the ice. It is impossible to tell if the skeletons were from the Silver Age or are more recent.
"Again Ren... There are only three of us!" Miri yelled, "It will take us weeks just to search this room, never mind the whole tower!"
"We won't be searching this room," Ren said, "Nameless horors are resistant to cold, but they will still easily freeze. They wouldn't be here. They'll be somewhere in the center of the tower, somewhere where they can conserve as much energy and warmth as possible. We just need to find an entrance that isn't frozen shut."
"Even that could take days." Miri said back.
"Well, you might want to get started then." Ren responded, already walking away.
Miri shook her head and started walking along the edges of the grand hall. Her assigned area was the right side. There was nothing but obsidian walls and ice. Every so often, Miri would have to walk away from the wall because of a crashed vehicle. She checked the first few crashed vehicles hoping one would have made a hole in the wall big enough for her to fit through, but there was no damage to the structure. After nearly an hour she made it to the corner, and a few minutes later, she met up with Axia who was assigned the back wall.
"Find anything?" Miri asked. Axia shook her head 'no'. "Great! And that's just the first floor in this room. Twenty more to go!"
They did eventually find an unfrozen doorway, after twenty hours of searching. They were on the sixth floor. The moment they walked inside, they immediately felt warm. There was no ice or sulfur smell and everything was dark. The three had made it to one of the citadel's residential palaces.
Palace
Each residence in the tower is the size of a palace on Vreathe, covering many thousands of square meters in size across multiple levels and there are thousands of similar palaces of various sizes spread througout the tower. The floors are covered in dark amethyst tiles and the walls are made of carved and melted obsidian glass. Strange crystals can be seen glowing and giving off a pale blue light, keeping the structure's interior constantly lit.
Aside from the main hall in the palace, there are many dozens of rooms. Most are empty as even a person with a thousand year lifespan would have trouble gathering enough objects to fill a palace this size. Most rooms that have objects in them include a few bedrooms, a library, an art gallery, and the like.
The reason these palaces were so large but empty was because the Silver Age humans were anticipating immortality. They had defeated the gods on Vreathe and were constructing a Great Crystal Tower to change the laws of the universe so they could live forever. The humans of that era built everything large so they could enjoy it to its fullest later. Unfortunately for them, the Cataclysm happened instead, and while a tiny percentage did achieve immortality, the Elves, most others were transformed beyond recognition and had their humanity taken away, due to their greed and their many other crimes.
Library
One of the rooms of interest in each palace would be the library. Here is a large crystal room, seemingly carved out of a single giant piece of amethyst. On the walls are various shelves holding many scrolls and books. The knowledge of Silver Age humans was vast and far beyond anything Iron Age humans are capable of. There were likely books here talking about technologies and uses for magic and haven't been seen or described in many millennia.
Day 1
Day 12
Day 18
Day 21
Day 1
I still have trouble believing these Lava breathing potions actually worked! Someone tell me, what mad mage was in his workshop one day and figured that making these was actually a wonderful idea? Now that we're on this hellish moon Izi, I can't wait to explore the area and find out the origin of the Phoenix!
Day 12
We were forced to take cover inside a large black citadel after an attack by vicious Magma Wolves. This structure still has breathable air and the temperature is quite agreeable as well. I heard some of the others saying this structure is from the Silver Age, left standing after the cataclysm. Well, hopefully we don't meet the original owners!
Day 18
I got separated from the rest of the group and now I have no idea where I am. This tower is massive and there are many thousands of interlocking rooms. I also keep running into strange tentacled creatures... likely the original owners. Luckily I am able to incinerate them as a fire mage, but my supply of mana won't last forever. Neither will my rations...
Day 21
I finally found the fates of the rest. The Tentacles things took them and... ate them! All that's left are bones and tattered clothes inside some sort of transparent sack. I'm at the end of my food supply and there is no possible chance of me making it back to the lava lake and take the portal back to Vreathe. I'm going to incinerate myself here, taking as many of these bastards with me in the explosion as I can.
This journal has burned edges and smells faintly of ash. The name on the inside cover indiciates it was owned by Kore Amanecer. The first few pages are written in an elegant script, common to many in Cassel. The last few pages however are heavily scribbled and appear to have been written by an unsteady hand.
It took the three around six hours to fully search the palace, ensuring there were no signs of nameless horrors. Ren had Miri and Axia check for any hole, crevice, or opening large enough for a small animal to fit through. There were several, but they were quickly destroyed. Ren and Axia melted the Obsidian until it dripped over the opening. Miri used her power of the Crystal Trace to cause the Obsidian crystal to grow and cover other openings.
The exhausted elves then made camp in the center of the palace's grand halls, far away from any of the walls, just to make doubly sure that they were not in any danger. After creating a fire and eating, Miri fell asleep rather quickly, with Ren fall asleep a few hours later. Axia was on guard for the first half of the night, then Ren was awoken to take the rest of the night.
The next day, They cleaned up camp and Ren led the three to one of the room she searched. This room was quite unlike anything Miri or Axia had seen before. The room had many machines with large screens on the walls. Nothing was on and running though. There were slots in the machines to place crystals, which would likely power them.
"This is the security office for this palace," Ren said, "We can use these machines to look for the nameless horrors."
"How?" Axia asked, "Nothing in here is functional. And even if it were, how could we use it?"
Ren pulled a large crystal out of her bag. It was a many faceted diamond. To Miri and Axia, it was the largest diamond they have ever seen. To Ren, it was her Star of Anarion, and it was just one of many thousands buried across the world of Vreathe.
Back in the Silver Age, these stars were like skeleton keys, able to copy and manipulate any kind of magic. Mages tried for many thousands of years to encrypt their magic with special passwords or codes, only for it to be broken by anyone with one of an ancient dragon lord's scales. Thankfully for Iron Age mages, only a few of these stars are known to exist, and they are free to encrypt their spells.
Ren took the star and placed it in a slot on the machine. She then charged the crystal with her own mana. The machine then started to make a sound, then the screen behind it came to life. It glows a pale blue and had white runes appearing across the screen. After a few seconds, the screen went completely black, then showed the entire dark citadel. Ren made a gesture towards the screen, pulling the image of the tower from the screen. Ren then placed the hologram on the floor in the middle of her, Miri, and Axia. Every few seconds, the image would blur and resharpen, likely from the age of the machine.
Magic can do a lot of strange things so Miri didn't question it, but she was wondering something else entirely, "How do you know how to use this machine? It's thousands, tens of thousand of years old!"
Ren smirked, "I've come across a few in several nameless dungeons. Nameless Horrors aren't dangerous because they look like monsters. They are dangerous because the hiveminds are still as smart as humans. Some of them still take advantage of old technology. I imagine the nameless horrors in this tower are doing exactly that to stay warm."
Ren sent a few pulses of energy through the crystal. the Tower hologram then cut itself in half and split apart. A glowing red dot appeared near the bottom of the tower. "That's us. Or rather, those are people with silver blood that the tower can see. Anyone else will show up as green instead of red."
"So that's why you only took elves with you..."
"I didn't want us getting turned around and confused. Even if our whole force made it to the tower, you two would be the only ones coming into the tower with me. Oh, speaking of green...there's these," Ren pointed at a green dot in the center of the tower, halfway up the spire, "These are living things without silverblood. These are the things we need to kill to secure this tower."
"Hold on a second," Axia said, "Can't they track us too?"
"Oh, they most definitely can!" Ren exclaimed, "But they don't know that we know that." Ren pulled the crystal out of the machine, causing everything to turn off, "I copied a map from the machine and put it in the crystal. We can charge my star of anarion and get a map whenever we need it! Let's go find an elevator!"
The Crystal Reactor
When the Silver Age humans built the dark citadels, they knew each tower would need a power source that would last forever if they actually achieved immortality, or at least so long that they wouldn't have to worry about running out of power anytime in the next several hundred millennia after they built it. They tested several different methods and used technologly that is far beyond Iron Age humans.
Their final solution to this was to grow a single large crystal that would hold the near infinite energy they required. Different towers had different crystals grown for them. For the Shaloz citadel, a large Sapphire crystal was grown. A special chamber was built for the crystal to sit. From here, gold wiring connect the crystal to everything in the tower that draws power, whether it is the small blue crystals that provide lighting or the computers in the security office or long dead security golems.
It cannot be understated just how much energy is still inside these reactor crystals, even after all this time. Some distance away from the Shaloz Citadel is the Urdaru Citadel. Inside this tower was a large quartz crystal. When this crystal was grown there was tiny fracture in the crystal structure that the humans at the time didn't see. When the Cataclysm happened and magical energies were forced across the universe, the ineraction caused the Urdaru crystal to rupture, completely obliterating the tower and sending a secondary shockwave of magical energy across the world.
The map made things rather easy for the three Elves as they made their way through the tower. They moved between palaces until they found a service elevator and took it up until they were in the upper core of the tower. It only took them a few hours to make it this distance. When they got off the elevator, they found themselves inside a large circular room with windows on all sides. In the center of the room was a large sapphire crystal many times taller than they were.
"Our objective is up there." Ren pointed to the circular opening above the crystal. "I'm going to jump up there and burn the colony away, you two stay down here."
"Uhm... We uhm" Miri said as she backed into Ren, "We have a problem!"
Ren turned around to see tentacled horrors crawling out of every corner of the room. Like any nameless horror these drones appeared like a large jellyfish with eyes. There were dozens of them. The three elves put their backs against each other and readied themselves. Ren drew her sword. Miri already had her staff ready, as did Axia with her spear.
Nameless Horrors
The residents of this tower are of course the Knidari, who are often called the nameless. They were the original residents of the tower before the Cataclysm completely stripped them of their humanity. The Citadel of Shaloz would have originally had thousands of newly created hiveminds. As they went into every crack and crevice in the tower, hiding in the shadows and creating their colonies, they would have also hunted each other, stealing each others resources until just a single hivemind and a single colony of mindless drones remained.
Knidari are very efficient with organic resources. The original colony might have spread across the entire tower interior at one point, but as resources started drying up, the hivemind would have been recycling their own bodies, making the colony smaller and smaller until it reached its present size. Since they couldn't survive the icy airless atmosphere of Izi, the only new resources they could obtain was from whatever creature wandered from outside.
Ren was easily able to cut down any of the nameless that attacked her. She fought these things dozens of times before and knew how they moved and attacked. The lower gravity of the world did make it more difficult but she was able to manage. Axia stayed in the air the entire time, jumping onto a column, then throwing her spear into a group of the creatures. She would then jump down and create an explosion of fire as she retrieved her weapon.
Miri was having trouble fighting them at first. Her staff wasn't doing very much damage and every magic spell she tried the creatures were shrugging off. She wasn't as adept in fire magic as the other two. As a group approached her, Miri slammed her staff into the tiles ground in panic, creating a wall of spikes around her. She realized the ground was made of crystal, amethyst specifically. Having the crystal trace meant she could control the entire floor and shape it to her will.
Miri knelt down and placed her hands against the floor, throwing as much magical energy as she could into the ground. Seconds later, spikes started forming under dozens of nameless before they spiked upwards puncturing them. Within a few minutes, all of the nameless were defeated and other than being out of mana, the three elves had wiped out the creatures without being injured.
Ren and Axia regrouped with Miri, but they couldn't rest or celebrate yet. Killing all the drones stirred the hivemind. From the opening above the reactor crystal a large winged creature descended until it was standing on the crystal. Hiveminds can take on a variety of appearances depending on what creatures it took control of. In the case of this hivemind, it appeared to be a large humanoid, possibly an ogre, covered in spikes. Tentacles wrapped around its head and jutted away from its mouth like an octopus. It looked out at all its dead drones then it looked at the three responsible. Ogres have trouble speaking human languages, even when controlled by a hivemind, but the hivemind wasn't interested in speaking. It let out a loud, terrifying roar, then charged.
Miri raised a shield using the crystal floor. The hivemind slammed its fists into the shield causing it to crack on the first hit, then shatter on the second. Before it could grab Miri, Axia had grabbed her and pulled her away. The hivemind then moved to take the two out, but Ren jumped between them and sent a large fireball at the creature's face. It exploded, causing singed tentacles to fly everywhere.
The hivemind let out another roar, and rammed into Ren, throwing her across the room. Ren tried to stabilize herself but she slammed into the wall and fell to the ground. The hivemind then grabbed Axia's spear. Axia refused to let go and was easily lifted into the air and slammed into the tiled floor causing it to crack.
With Ren and Axia motionless, Miri was the only one left. She created spikes from the crystal floor and sent them into the creature, causing it to scream in pain before it shattered the crystal spikes and went after Miri. Miri dodged out of the way and jumped towards Axia's body. When she got there, she grabbed hold of Axia and sunk into the floor like it was water, creating the largest distance she could between herself and the creature.
The hivemind saw exactly where Miri sank and started slamming its fists into the ground. Miri stayed in place a meter away, holding onto Axia. Miri started saying her prayers to Silnos, unsure if she was going to get out of this situation, but a bright flash of red light caught her eye, even through the thick crystal around her. She looked up and saw Ren!
Ren stood on the reactor crystal, completely engulfed in flames. She was absorbing energy from the reactor crystal to power her magic. The hivemind noticed this and started to charge at her, but it was already far too late. Ren send off a nova shockwave, quickly engulfing everything in the room in flames. The hivemind didn't even have a chance to feel pain before it was turned to ash and the ashes blasted against the walls of the room. All the other creatures that were laying dead on the ground were also destroyed.
After covering the entire room, the nova shockwave then went upwards into the circular opening, spreading to every possible opening, then filling whatever room it led to. Within seconds the entire core section of the dark citadel was blasted with fire as hot as the surface of a star, burning or melting away anything that was in its way. As quickly as the shockwave spread out, it vanished.
Miri pulled herself and Axia out of the floor. The room now looked completely different, covered in ash. Ren was laying on the reactor crystal completely spent of her energy.
Smoke and Frost IX
Previous:: Respite I
Next:: Respite II
| Smoke and Frost |
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Impressive towers, impressive article. With that word count I would have reached half my target. Just three questions: The world is volcanic, so why is everything frozen? How do the crystals work, where do they get their energy from? Is Ren dead?
Thankyou! To answer your questions:
Thank you for the explanations :) Good to know that Ren is fine. Looking forward to read more about her adventures.