Chapter Seven Hundred And Eighty – 780
"So this thing is supposed to help us?" Archie asked, poking the worn stone panther face. It snarled at him silently, its fangs bigger than one of his daggers. "It's just a road."
They stood on a segment of elevated highway, or at least that's how Archie understood it. Some ways distant from the ruin that held the Shadowgate, this place rose up on tall pillars hewn from local rock into fanciful designs covered with snarling harnoqs and screeching lizards that Beef kept calling Dragons. To Archie, they didn't look like dragons so much as big, angular crocodiles. Nothing at all like Yintarion.
“No, no,” said Mauvim. “This is an artifact designed to connect places distantly."
"So it's like a portal?” Beef asked.
"No, not a portal, but an accelerator. It increases the speed of travel across the Continent. We've seen pieces of things like this, but never something so well-preserved."
Mauvim ran her hands across the construction, fingers tangling on leafy vines. Archie didn't know how well it was really preserved. Everything around them was half-swallowed by the jungle. Bright flowers hung off of every piece of architecture, and vines clung so tightly to stone that some were more plant than mineral.
"So how's it work?” Harn asked. He stood up from inspecting a chipped slab. “I don’t see any sigils.”
“You must look with all of your senses.” Mauvim ran her hands down the half-walls at the side. They lit up, sigils rising from beneath the stone like ice cubes in tepid water. A circle surrounded her, then a line of sigaldry shot to her left, anchoring itself against the nearest harnoq statue before extending a short ways to another, and then another. The magic sizzled, a heat Archie could feel even through the tropical temperatures around them, and it burned away the roots and vines that crossed its path.
Mauvim straightened and smiled, looking more like a grandma than a powerful mage. "One must press their Intent against its power. At one point, it no doubt ran constantly, but whatever power source it relied upon has long since died out. We must provide it ourselves. Continually.”