474 A Runic Master

I gave her a knowing grin.

"That's where I come in. Later on, I'll be able to get us the machinery we need, but for now-"

I raised a hand, and I turned a panel in it. My body glowed with ascendant mana as I carved into the panel.

"I'll guide and you'll be the explorer, eh?"

Amara smiled. Her eyes narrowed.

"Then let it be so."

Chapter Begin

We got to work, setting up walkways lined by walls of my dimensional fabric. The panels stood like paper-thin sheets of aluminum, each section wide enough for us to walk through. The metallic hallways gave us plenty of space for our study, and the metal mirrored what we would write the runes on. While stepping past them, the walls reflected us, our blurred outlines like the ghosts of a broken girl and a steel monster standing as her guard.

The eyes of my helm grew red before grinning. Underneath the helmet, I rolled my eyes before moving on to the rune build-up. Amara had to know what she was working with. After a few minutes of setup, I took out several panels of my dimensional fabric and resonated different notes from the fractal language.

The notes hummed to life on the steel plates, the orchestration something deeper than sound. It rippled onto reality, a palpable sensation that omened change. It left Amara's eyes wide and her jaw slack. After her initial shock, she hummed along, her appearance and following of the melody seemingly unconscious. As I demonstrated more of the fractal's intricacies, more tears fell from Amara's eyes.

Once more, memories fought to surface, yet they remained under the gloomy waters of her shattered mind. They were a tangible reminder of something she could feel but not quite grasp. As I watched, I held back my sadness, not wanting her to feel like she couldn't express herself. It was something I learned from my father. There was a time and place for my emotions, but now wasn't one of them.

After waiting a while, she gulped.

"This is absurd. I despise being so out of control of my emotions. It's as if I am an instrument that is being played rather than a song that I choose to sing. Gah. Curse this flesh of mine."

I frowned, trying to remember times I felt that way.

"Whenever I was younger, I was always emotional with my dad. I could maintain a certain kind of demeanor with most people, but the moment he said a few choice words, I'd see red. I think this situation is a lot like that, but you can't remember what's causing it. That's got to be frustrating."

She shouted while scratching her nails on the metal. Sparks erupted.

"Gah. It's pathetic."

I sighed.

"These fractals are a big part of your past, and they're almost certainly a big part of why someone scrambled your memories. In that way, we're tapping into something brimming beneath the surface, so we really can't say it's pathetic or not."

Amara sighed.

"It is due to wounds from a forgotten history. Perhaps a part of my disarrayed mind is holding on, and it is crying out for release? No. It will have a darker origin. I can imagine a horrific history of abuse and terror, trying to escape. Perhaps my teacher tortured me in experiments?"

Amara wasn't trembling in fear. If anything, she carried grief. I murmured.

"I doubt that.

"You know nothing.

"We know that something is fighting down there. We know the memories aren't all lost."

Amara sneered.

"But to what end? To see my other half desperately struggling? I'd rather not know about this."

I grinned.

"Oh, come on. That struggle means it's still alive, and we can get it out."

Amara peered forward.

"Yes. Perhaps that is so. Let's...Let's continue this nonsense. I want to create a set of fractals for a variety of tests. Once I've acclimatized to their intrinsic differences, I will create something akin to a universal resonator."

I furrowed my brow.

"What in the hell is a universal resonator?"

She smiled.

"A baseline test used to assess the meaning of different runic languages. They parse out the meaning of runes."

"And here I used trial and error. I should've asked earlier."

She narrowed her maw, her breath far better than before her systemization.

"Hm, there are benefits and detriments to either approach. I could've destroyed myself or entire areas during my own experimentation."

"Still, I could've saved some time."

She laughed, her voice an echo through an empty home.

"But you saved lives in doing so. Researchers will have survived from your study, so rest easy upon your deeds. That is, assuming you wish for the blight of humanity to spread."

"Oh, I think more than a few people would argue the same of you."

Steel leaked into her voice.

"We are more than a blight, and I will show them that truth."

I gestured to her plans.

"Then show me how we're going to do the impossible."

"Constructing a universal resonator isn't as difficult as it sounds. Imagine it as if you are drawing blood from a vein. A tiny prick from a needle is all it takes before the delicious ichor rises to the surface."

I shivered at the analogy. Needles. Yeesh. Her smile deepened.

"We will do the same with these cipheric fractals. Once this basic task is handled, we shall understand how it connects to our realm. We can then explore its implications thereafter. Let us hope that the ichor of this dimension is as delicious as the blood that could be drawn."

I raised a brow.

"You sure you're not a vampire?"

"Have you seen me explode under the sun?"

I scoffed.

"At the very least, you look miserable when you're outside."

She hissed.

"It's a giant ball of plasma and fire. Why should I be happy to be under its gaze?"

I smirked.

"Huh. That sounded suspiciously like something a vampire would say."

She threw her hands up before snapping.

"Let us get on with it."

She was right on all accounts, outside of the sun part, so we kept trying out different runes and fractal combinations. The effort piled up, evolving our disparate learning into tangible results, and hours heaped into days. As expected, Amara outpaced my conceptual understanding, but unlike Emeralga, she dwarfed me to such a degree that I could hardly fathom it.

I acted as the resident etcher, essentially the calligrapher for her poetry. The largest advantage and reason I could serve that purpose was, once more, my durability. What would blow her apart would, well, it would blow me apart too, but I'd survive. Eh, that's a pretty good contribution? Right?

Either way, it made us a dynamic duo. She funneled profound ideas and complex patterns to me while I wrote, tested, and observed the results of said complexity. Unlike whenever I tried experimenting, the runes backfired many times during our research. While a potent theory crafter, Amara's success rate was pretty damn low.

Part of the reason for that revolved around her higher risk, higher reward approach. It was ironic because she'd never carved this way. She smiled as she tested yet another pattern on a wall.

"Little lamb, do you ever wonder why I test such insane theories?"

I gestured at the jumbled-up mess.

"Hell yeah, I do. That...That is nonsense. You're going to get us killed."

Her grin grew malevolent.

"It won't be us, will it?"

I shook my hands at the insanity.

"We can't carve that on me, so what's the point in making it?"

She let a silence pass over us. She raised a hand, her anger restrained yet boiling.

"This is why your runic understanding has evolved so little since you started. You're a simpleton with a one-track mind. There are situations where that approach is applicable, if not the best avenue to success. However, this is far from a trial-and-error kind of process. You must enact a thousand rules in tandem while understanding their interactions."

She outlined runes of unbelievable depth and complexity.

"By boiling down your understanding of these sigils, you've avoided mistakes in deforming your personality. And yet, it's left you stunted in the many ways the cipher can be applied. By implementing many theories at many different angles, we can gain a far greater understanding of how the sigils change you."

I shrugged.

"I never wanted to destroy myself with my runes. I'm one of the only people I know who has written them on myself without turning my mind into soup. That has to count for something."

She gestured her hand at the sigils.

"It counts towards maintenance. We must do more if you are to ever face an Old One...Or has that goal changed?"

"I've built my life around facing them."

"Now, we must build more than a life. We must construct an epitaph of who you were to become something new. Something greater. That will require risk. Will you take that?"

I took a shaky breath.

"I will, though as cautiously as I can."

"And that is why we carve it up on the wall first. You shall channel and warp this space, but you will come out of it unscathed. I shall learn, and far more quickly than I could on my own. Once we amass our progress, we'll test the runic configurations on golems and then on the genuine article."

"That sounds a lot like trial and error but with extra steps."

She pointed at me.

"Silence your misgivings, or do you wish to rescind my help?"

"Well, I kind of do."

"But you won't."

She steepled her hands.

"So, for now, we dwell in the madness of these sigils."

Another chaotic explosion later, and the city above quaked. My golems kept the devastation contained before I reshaped my body back into its normal shape. I walked over to Amara, who hid behind a protective barrier that kept her safe. I crossed my arms.

"So you have a guinea pig?"

"More like a rodent. A talkative, complaining rodent."

I rolled my eyes, and we continued. Unlike Amara, I took my runic approach one step at a time. After all, I was carving runes into my skin and changing myself with them. That was their primary purpose for my use, and that could be why I kept precision and craftsmanship at the forefront. They were a means of progress that hadn't required putting my soul on the line.

Amara kept a different target and ambition altogether. Avante-Garde, bold, and explorative, her favorite methods focused on applying alien concepts until she found an idea that clicked. The more I saw her process, the less it mirrored iterative trial and error. It was more like a bomb specialist testing out new explosives by swallowing them.

Of course, eating hand grenades was my job. Once Amara found functional runic patterns, she rapidly reformed, reforged, and remade the sigils until they shone from polish. That was her greatest strength. Correction. Reorienting. Perfecting. All she needed was a semblance of stability before she could make the sigils airtight using thousands of strange, esoteric methods.

I tried learning how she did it, but it was like trying to learn quantum physics. I ran into a conceptual wall that I couldn't overcome, and it made the distance between us as obvious as a rich king and a penniless pauper. This risky experimentation also explained her disheveled appearance.

Amara felt no need to wear expensive clothes that would immediately be destroyed in her research. She also immersed herself in study to such an extent that she forgot basic hygiene. It was something I took for granted, but my armor cleaned me in a way that other people only dreamed of.

Hell, I would've been a filthy hobo during my fractal studies if not for that innate quirk of my odd biology, yet I didn't even consider cleanliness for a second. Amara lacked my innate cleaning, so one of the guardian golems took care of her these days. That's a large part of what resulted in her vastly improved appearance.

I thought it had been the system, but it was actually one of my helpers. The more you know, eh?

Anyway, we piled on the effort until days turned into weeks. I incorporated temporal magic and my dual aura into the room after day one, though I kept Firamnia's mana from smothering Amara. She wasn't as immortal as I was, and the sacrifice aspect would be an intense cost for her. However, after a few days of work, she wanted to test the energy.

To my surprise, Amara integrated both mana types into herself, and she contained their influence well. So well, it hinted at something else going on. Even when awash in Firamnia's mana, Amara continued her pristine level of focus, something even I struggled with. I also understood why she was chosen as a Builder.

Amara's mind wasn't like mine. She thought in a discordant, tangled mess of thoughts. It was like trying to make sense of an unsolvable labyrinth or optical illusion. Every hallway and corridor only pulled you deeper into the abyss, and you ended up getting nowhere. While that sounded like a weakness, it was arguably her greatest strength.

She tried everything under the sun, moon, and stars while carving. I put myself into a box whether I wanted to or not, yet Amara continued her insane iterations even after weeks of testing and failure. She never relented or slowed her progress. Most people would become frustrated and stop after getting so little feedback, but Amara sped up as the days passed.

She never faltered. She attuned to the craft, forgetting all else. Madness made more madness. Failure fathered further failure. It continued as if it would forever, but then the lack of progress shattered.

She stumbled onto an absolutely deranged pattern of runes and fractals, every part of it screaming at me that it would explode. Whenever I tested it, a sound echoed from the runes, and they carved from the wall onto space itself. A resonance built, and it cascaded over the room. The droning echo throttled my mind, my soul, and my mana.

It left me reeling, unable to find a firm grasp on the ground. Even after I stopped channeling, it continued its percussion. I held back tremors in my hands while Amara leaked blood from her eyes and ears.

She let out a cackle.

"This...I've found it. This is the resonance with our dimension."

I gawked at the set of runes before flinging her back to the guardian golem in the back of the walled room. Even at that distance, she let out laughs of glee, blood dripping down her neck and staining her shirt.

Turning to the resonator, it didn't seem profound or like a kind of amplifier. Instead, it pulled on its surroundings like a raincatcher caught rain. By pulling in the space around us, it created some odd density. In that richness, we crumbled. Taking a moment, I swelled my wake over it, and it quashed to a chilling memory.

Once I purged this area of foreign influence, Amara stepped up. She rambled under her breath while changing the patterns and shapes. Every depth was altered, and she left an extensive set of corrections for me to implement. I went in, taking my time to enact the will of a runic master.

I implemented a few carving techniques here and there as I went. I peeled the wall segment off, floating it in the air and carving on both sides. Ripping out other sheets, I wrote down other carvings in connecting layers, creating a series of sigils that interlocked. I continued my carving until I found myself no longer writing runes.

Instead, I had changed into a sculptor. The runes had shifted in complexity to such an extent that simple, two-dimensional charting didn't work anymore. Instead, I created dozens of layers, each interlocking and covered in patterns. Amara marveled at my technique as I set the finished product down.

It was like a thousand sheets of paper put together to make a hollowed cube. However, each page of this cube carried a book on its surface and had shapes cut out of it. The holes all lined up between the pages, resulting in another set of contrasting, hollowed sections within the cube. Those gaps acted as a contrasting fractal pattern embedded inside the object.

Forget actually thinking about something this complex. Just manufacturing it would've been damn near impossible, but I could do it. Hell, I could do it easily. It was the result of all my crafting and combat skills coming together in an elegant harmony. It made my other projects feel like child's play, and these were by far the most complex set of sigils I'd ever created.

Of course, I hadn't made them alone. Amara shook her head, her brow furrowed.

"Ugh. Disgusting. To craft something so obtuse in hours. I can hardly discern that object's surface."

I smiled.

"Thanks. That's exactly how it feels when I look at your runic planning."

She smirked.

"Of course it is, though it's good to see a refiner of your caliber. I have rarely received this kind of help."

I raised a brow, and she shook her head. She gawked at her hands. Wait, no, her hands gawked at her face. Amara let out a sharp sigh.

"A refiner? Hm, I'm speaking words I don't know the meaning of. Finally, I can feel it. The lock...It's unraveling."

I spread my hands.

"That's great. Speaking of locked secrets, you want to give this thing a go to understand the secrets of the fractals and cipher?"

She snarled.

"Yes. Let it be done. Perhaps I may uncover more of what I was."

Taking a breath, I pointed at it.

"But, hm, how does it even work?"

She flopped her hands at it.

"I have no idea. You are the fractal expert, aren't you?"

I gestured to the object.

"You helped me make that, and now you don't know what it does?"

"You learned the language and shared it with me. Asking me to operate the runes is like a wolf asking a hare how to use its claws. The wolf simply knows."

I blinked before sighing. I walked up to the cube and rubbed my hands together. I shoved them forward, my expression like death and horror.

"Open sesame."

I shrugged.

"Well, damn. I did the best I could."

Amara waved her hands in frustration before I smiled. I raised my hands in defense.

"Ok, ok, I'll give it a real shot."

Before I could start, I had to understand what the hell I had made. I took another look at the object, and yeah, it was kind of like a Rubik's cube made of Swiss cheese. I beamed with pride at it before testing the many fractals that lined its surface using raw mana. Amara hid behind a guardian golem in the meantime.

The guardian golem held its hands out to her, and it spoke in a soft voice.

"Now, lady Amara, you must be careful. Ah, you always find a way to come back disheveled, don't you? Please, let me-"

She snapped her hand at it.

"For Schema's sake, leave me be."

The guardian golem raised a hand, swells of mana following its hands. Amara's hair lifted before a an invisible telekinetic set of points passed through her hair. I gawked.

"Is that a telekinetic hairbrush."

The guardian nodded, its hands moving in tandem.

"Yes, creator. You'd be surprised how much you can gain from any magic if you look deep enough."

It gestured to itself.

"I'm a great example."

Amara snarled as a telekinetic point caught one of her hair knots.

"Cease you, imbecile."

The guardian peered down. It spoke in a serious voice.

"Pain is fleeting. Greatness is forever."

She raised her hands.

"What greatness have you gifted me?"

It continued brushing her hair.

"A great hair day."

Ignoring their bickering, I tested the cipheric fractals, and it didn't let out a singular note. Instead, it sang out, and its chorus was something felt, not heard. A tangible weight settled onto the entire space, and it bent under the will of the runes.

It carried a kind of dominance, one that transcended the physical. In many ways, it left me terrified at the depth hidden within Amara's mind. She had made this horrid object. She constructed this abomination from nothing, and it held some eerie promise behind the languid, oppressive song. It reminded me of another feeling I'd felt on a few occasions.

The more it resonated, the more certain I was. This was an aura from an Old One. I never imagined it would be summoned from something as simplistic as a runic sculpture, yet here it was, undeniable as death. Despite the similar pressure, this ambiance lacked Eonoth or Baldowah's signature oppression.

However, the cube carried the same soul-smothering impact. I crunched down from all angles, my body crumpling from the close proximity. Before the wave of oppression got to Amara and the guardian, I jerked them back using a gravity well. They flung backward, and I lost my control over magic.

My wake turned into a minute singularity, and it held me in place. Amara was rendered unconscious after a few seconds, even from afar, and the guardian golem struggled against the rippling sound. It moved in staggering, jilted steps. The horrifying music continued until I lost cohesion in my thoughts.

Was this even sound? At this point, it was an aura that rivaled my dimensional wake at full throttle. Unlike myself, this cube carried momentum. It kept amassing energy until my teeth shattered and my bones broke. I marveled at it before surging out. I met a steel wall.

My wake rebounded before jerking back out. I kept wailing on the counteracting aura, my mind bleeding and my body dividing. My dimensional wake shoved it away one inch at a time. Each bit of gained ground weakened the ambient aura as a whole, giving me a fighting chance.

After a few hours, the area regained its normalcy. I heaved for breath, silver sweat leeching out of me. Or was it blood? I couldn't tell. As the harmony ceased, I gazed behind me. The guardian golem had long evacuated anyone in the city. After checking my status, the golem returned with Amara. She had awakened and regained her bearings.

She let out a sigh.

"It was meant to bring our reality to a more tangible surface, yet all it seemed to do was destroy everything nearby. A failure."

I frowned.

"Not at all. This is another step I'll need to take."

Amara murmured.

"And how is that?"

I took a breath.

"It could be that an Old One is spying on us or watching, and this amplified their presence."

Amara shivered.

"That...That is an unsettling thought."

I winced.

"It is, isn't it? Still, this should prove useful."

"Certainly, it is dangerous beyond measure. We may nest it in an opponent's nest before unleashing its horror. Perhaps it could act as a barrier to a territory?"

I shrugged before analyzing the object. I shared the description with Amara.

A Universal Monolith | Guild: The Old Ones??? | Purpose: Unknown - This strange sculpture resonates with the fabric of reality, magnifying the sounds of the cosmos. By amplifying these sounds, it carries those who listen closer to the meaning of the universe. What lies within that meaning? Even to Schema, your guess is as good as anyone's.

Be wary of tampering with this primordial object, and always remember that some doors are better left closed. You've been warned.

I massaged my temples.

"Ok, so it does resonate with reality. Maybe it's saying that power is the purest expression of our shared dimension or something like that?"

Amara gawked at her creation.

"This...This is useless to the point of being drivel. It can only be used to destroy. Gah. That is all my kind ever does, and I cannot seem to escape it, even in an act of creation."

I smiled.

"Make no mistake, while this is a powerful effect, that doesn't make it bad. It makes it potent, and we can wield that potency to our own ends."

Amara scoffed.

"What then? You'll carry it into battle like an instrument of war?"

I shook my head.

"That wasn't what I was thinking, but that does, in fact, sound pretty effective. I was more so thinking I'll bear this thing's full brunt and tolerate its resonance."

She shook her head in disgust.

"Ah, yes, the Harbinger's method - to suffer without cause. Tell me, is that why you've fought so hard to persist? Do you really live to suffer?"

I rolled my shoulders.

"No. I suffer so that I may live."

A silence passed over us before Amara rolled her eyes.

"You know that wasn't clever, right?"

I scratched my cheek.

"Look, it sounded cooler in my head."

Amara moved her hands as if shoving something inside a box.

"That's where it belongs. The pit in your mind. You know the one. It's the pit where you cringe at the thought of speaking the pit's hidden thoughts aloud. But you've done far worse. You actually voiced one of the thoughts. Shame. Shame upon you and your clan."

I sighed.

"Ok, I deserve a bit of heat for that, but my point still stands."

I gazed at the runic sculpture with a smile.

"I'm taking another step towards my endgame."

"To face the Old Ones?"

My smile turned fierce.

"No. To kill them."