Universe's End

When days turned into weeks, and weeks into months, the next obvious progression was for those months to add up to a year.

In what felt like no time at all, Rory found himself pondering the conclusion to their foray into Oscuro. Time remaining was short, days at most, something Rory could instinctively sense like an intrinsic countdown timer had been installed in his head on entering the darkness realm.

Time within Oscuro had been overall quite the needed change of pace, with lots of exotic goodies obtained. But, as of now, the best reward had been the Noctis Silver they had pilfered from the Noctis Enforcers' quarry.

But they were looking to change that up with one final heist.

Or perhaps "heist" was putting it too nicely; more like one final hit job.

“Beware those who would look to ascend the Six Moon Temple,” Allison read a flagstone in front of the structure before she crossed her arms. “So…. Those capstones.”

“The technical term is benben,” Rory corrected.

“How do you even know that?”

“Movies.”

“Sure, whatever,” Allison sighed. They were standing in front of a massive pyramid, more ornate than any other structure they’d encountered within Oscuro-Noctis so far. Not only was it massive, but it was also surrounded by a powerful-looking wall of legendary-grade black sandstone, a fun way of saying ‘totally impervious,’ much like some of the structures one could find on the third floor of the maw. Above the same wall, preventing any funny ideas, there was a shimmering barrier, a force field that would prevent bypassing the defenses.

Finally, situated near the entrance was a single sealed-off entryway, with a conveniently pyramid-shaped pedestal.

Almost like a capstone was meant to be inserted.

“Well, get to plopping it in,” Allison said, pointing between the capstone lock and Rory.

“That’s what she said,” Rory snorted before shaking his head, one of several capstones they’d pilfered from the puzzle ziggurats. “Except, one issue.”

“Yeah?”

“It’s not ready,” Rory said, pointing up at one of the moons. “I need to align the conceptual affinity with that of the first moon.”

“And how long will that take?” Allison asked.

“In truth? Not too long,” Rory said. “Thankfully, I’ve been playing around with these things for long enough now that it's almost second nature.”

“So, which moon?” Allison asked.

“Duh, the hollow moon,” Rory said, pointing to the moon that almost looked like a ring more than a moon.

“How do you know that?”

“Think it through like a puzzle. This black wall surrounds the actual structure of importance. That moon is a ring surrounding a black core. One fits inside the other.”

“Oh, like how a capstone would fit into the lock,” Allison said, seeing the connection. “Damn. That would have taken me way too long to make the connection.”

“Brains over brawn,” Rory said, tapping his head and not mentioning the fact that he’d had several mental threads breaking down that very question since he’d realized the need for the capstones as keys.

“Sure, sure, just get to the mad science stuff.” Allison shook her head.

“It’s not mad science, it’s alchemy,” Rory said, one hand pressed against the black sandstone wall and the capstone, using the wall as a sort of guideline for the conceptual transmutation. He’d known of lunar energies for quite some time; one of the prominent members of Ehkorrus was a user of lunar abilities after all, and so it hadn’t taken him that long to take that base model of lunar energy and twist it, cutting out things that didn’t fit while adding in things that did.

Around an hour and six minutes later, Rory nodded to himself as he pulled himself out of the alchemy-focused trance, the capstone now shimmering with metallic blackness.

“Perfect,” Rory said, walking back over to the pedestal that Allison was sitting cross-legged next to.

“Done?” Allison asked.

“Done,” Rory said, sliding the capstone in. The fit was so seamless that one wouldn’t even realize that the pedestal ever had an opening in it, and after a few seconds of holding his breath, the shimmering barrier blocking the main entry vanished.

“Boom, that’s how it's done,” Rory said.

“Don’t get too ahead of yourself,” Allison said, already standing up as the two passed the black sandstone wall and entered a large courtyard situated before the pyramid proper.

A sudden flash of light tore out from the ground, forcing Rory to roll to the side, Allison rolling to the other, both of them instantly wearing their respective helmets as they switched to combat mode.

“Shit,” Rory muttered. The light that had erupted, rose-gold in color, had split the courtyard in two, with Rory and Allison held within two separate pyramids of light.

“Incoming,” Allison shouted as the ground opened from the centers of their respective courtyard halves and things appeared. They reminded Rory of the Noctis Enforcers, except this time their bones were visibly shining with red, almost pink light that their ink-black skin did not stop.

Three appeared in each section as Rory rolled his shoulders.