Chapter 131: The Lighthouse
After Balor departed the civilization shard’s atrium in the center of the citadel, hastily making off to prepare for Earth’s failing assimilation, Coop checked on his companions. Looking around, he felt like he was the only one even remotely alarmed by each bit of additional information they gathered. He expected at least a few of them to be falling down a rabbit hole, imagining the possibilities and implications with two different unchecked entities governing the universe. Normally, he thought he was the steady one, taking things one step at a time, but everyone else was the picture of indifference this time around. Coop shook his head to himself, worried about what the apocalypse had done to his friends’ psychology, and what it had done to his own.
Kayla was casually polishing the hilt of her sword with the edge of her waistband and Camila and Charlie were quietly joking about something else entirely. Coop glanced at Jones, hoping to find a reasonable reaction, but even the senior caretaker avoided being overwhelmed by the revelations he had received all at once. Instead, the old man was carefully observing the stone construction of the citadel, evidently getting used to his new abilities in the meantime.
Coop nodded, deciding that he was the weirdo for even considering galactic existential threats, truly ancient conflicts, and gray goo, when the day-to-day was already plenty to occupy their focus. In any case, he was sure that he would have plenty of time for idle thoughts during his next grind session. Obviously, even for him, his next grind session took precedence over figuring out their place in the universe. That was another topic he would have to leave for others with more expertise.
Marcus jotted down some notes to remind himself to follow up with Balor like he was making sure a shopping list included milk and bread. Coop got the impression the Viceroy believed that whatever the stonemason worked up would be diplomatic in nature and therefore wasn’t something that the Champion would be particularly involved with. That was fine with both of them.
Since everyone was more or less waiting for Coop, he nodded to himself and got moving. “What do you say we get this Purification Chip installed?” He proposed as he approached the civilization shard, breaking the calm that had claimed everyone else to focus on the next step forward.
“About time.” Camila taunted playfully before being lightly shoved by Charlie. Jones smirked at the exchange between the girls, obviously glad that Coop had ended up with worthy companions that could both advise him and keep him grounded.
Coop placed the small red disc on the ground underneath the floating red crystal, where a berm had been cut through the stone floor of the citadel, housing the shard, and stepped away. He expected a grand occurrence to initiate the new development. They hadn’t forgotten the epic reveal of the phantoms when he completed the quest to retrieve the Spectral Relic.
Nothing happened for a moment even though he had done just what Lyriel had instructed. Coop clicked his teeth, disappointed that his expectations were never met when it came to their developments, but before he lost hope, the civilization shard subtly hummed with energy, gradually escalating until it was clear that some power was at play.
“Here we go.” He breathed, feeling a little giddiness despite constantly being let down.
The red disc hovered off the ground toward the bottom tip of the shard, as if it was drawn by a magnet, buzzing with unseen energy. The disc started to rotate, slowly increasing speed until it started to gently glow, matching the shard’s ever present red aura and eventually exceeding it with its own vivid color. The disc was a blur of speed and light after just a few more seconds.
The illumination continued to escalate, along with the buzzing, until it was difficult to endure. Coop squinted and clenched his jaw, as the light and sound grew beyond uncomfortable levels, but as soon as it reached the point that Coop was avoiding looking at it directly, the light abruptly cut off and the sound stopped. Coop’s eyes took a moment to adjust from the sharp color back to the regular ambient light. He blinked a few times to speed up the process and observe what had happened.
The final result was a simple, opaque band of solid red, ringing the lower tip of the civilization shard. Coop thought it was a bit disappointing after all, but that was typical of literally every development the system provided, so why not with the pseudo-system objects as well. Another moment passed where nothing happened.