Echoes Of The Seven

Jasmine landed on her back. Hard.

Hard enough to knock the air out of her lungs and force her to roll onto her side, coughing into the stone floor. Instinctively, her fingers clenched in anger and pain, clawing at the ground as she sputtered. She grit her teeth and curled her tongue. She wanted to hit something. She wanted to feel something break. Anything that might make the blood pumping through her ears settle down.

Jasmine paused, closed her eyes, and forced a breath. Bloodwhetting.

Like water being pulled into a sponge, she could feel her heartbeat slowing down. The heat in her face growing more temperate. The roiling in her stomach simmering. She could feel the anger being sapped away, and at the same time, her strength. It was still unsettling- to feel so uncharacteristically weak and frail despite being at her ‘normal’ level. Everything was always fine until Jasmine started building her Rage. So much strength… then to instantly take it away? It almost made her queasy.

With weak-feeling arms, Jasmine quickly pushed herself to her knees and glanced around the room. It was square and probably fifty feet on a side, with no visible entrances or exits. Glancing up, Jasmine couldn’t even see where she had presumably fallen from- the ceiling ended about fifteen feet up. However, and more importantly, there were four other people in an identical state. Alex, Nima, Meghan and Claire were all groaning in pain on the stone floor and gasping for air to fill their lungs after apparently being dropped just like Jasmine was.

Most notably, Alex’s armour was glowing bright pink from criss-crossing lines of energy. Jasmine could see the same still coming from her own equipment. Between the Berserker, the Knight, and Alex’s sword and shield laying a few feet off to the side, the room was cast in a dim magenta glow that all-but-confirmed the quickly-rising theory in Jasmine’s mind.

“Nngh- fuck…” Meghan groaned. “Jaxie, are you still here with me- oh.” She glanced at everyone else. “Pretty shitty reunion, but I’ll take it.”

Claire had forced herself onto hand and knees, and Jasmine could see something covering the entire front of her armour and leaving a few streaks over her chin. Was that… vomit?

“Why-” the Evoker coughed, and Jasmine could indeed confirm that Claire was covered in bile when a few errant strings of the stuff was hacked out. “Why are both of you glowing?”

“There’s a more important question to be asked-” Nima cut in, sitting up and turning her gaze to the Shaman. “Meghan, are you alright? What happened?”

The redhead raised an eyebrow. “What, you have a crush on me? Seeing if I’m okay is more important than learning why two of our teammates are dressed like walking constellations?”

Nima blinked a few times. “No, I was shown a vision of you, presumably alone and in trouble. I assumed that I needed to come to your aid, but perhaps I was incorrect.” Her eyes flicked down towards Meghan’s midsection. “Your armour is damaged.”

“Oh, it was only a little bit of impalement, don’t worry about it.” Meghan waved an errant hand. “Why is Miss SparkleFingers covered in breakfast?”

The Evoker continued to regulate her breathing, idly sticking up a middle finger in Meghan’s direction. Alex coughed. “Turns out Claire is pretty claustrophobic. We were stuck in a room the size of a coffin and, uhh… she didn’t like that.”

Jasmine raised an eyebrow. “So you two were paired up?”

An affirming nod. “Yeah, we needed to solve a puzzle about the familiars of the Seven.”

Jasmine pursed her lips. “Meghan and I were paired together, too. We needed to figure out a riddle about… Lust.”

Her and Alex shared a cautious glance. Already, the picture was starting to become clear in Jasmine’s mind, but that was only confirmed when Nima spoke.

“I was alone for my puzzle. I needed to read a poem written in Ra’lan, and when I did, it showed me an image of Meghan made out of pink light. Then it dropped me here.”

All of Eris’s equipment was glowing pink.

A riddle about Lust.

A puzzle specifically about the Seven.

And an image that most certainly wasn’t Meghan, but Eris.

Jasmine weighed all the options in her head and squared her jaw. Obviously, Eris was somehow influencing the Obelisk and all of this was a result of that. Was it because they brought equipment made by her inside? It had to be. If Eris was one of the ‘authorized individuals’, then maybe the Obelisk was sensing her connection through the equipment she made and…

Meghan shifted so that she was sitting cross-legged. “Honestly, there’s a chance that it wasn’t me you were shown but Eris. We look pretty damn similar.”

“But Eris isn’t here, so that option makes no logical sense.”

“Okay, then why is literally everything she made glowing and not a single bit of our other equipment?” Meghan raised a cocky eyebrow. Both Nima and Claire took a long, careful look at the lines of light crossing over Jasmine and Alex. Claire sat back on her heels.

“Because the Obelisk is trying to tell us something about Eris.”

Jasmine watched Alex fidget nervously- not much, just a bit of clenching in her fingers as she tried her best to hide a reaction. It would be completely invisible to anyone that wasn’t actively paying attention to the girl or didn’t know her. Still, such movement was just enough for Meghan’s gaze to flick over like a hawk clocking new prey.

“Eris isn’t a normal Artisan, is she?”

Shit.

Nima sat back slightly.

“Eris’s birthday was just under a week ago, which coincides with the dates of the Gifting no longer functioning as stated in the assembly. Eris was one of, if not the very last person to become Gifted. The power of her items has also been quite noticeable. Artisans are supposed to sacrifice power in their crafts for their versatility to make anything. I had my spear specifically made by a Metalsmith and a Woodworker, so it is one of the strongest options craftable at first level, but your weapons and equipment seem to be even more capable despite being made by an individual whose class is intrinsically designed for weaker crafts.”

Meghan nodded. “Yeah, that scorpion tore through my chainmail like it wasn’t there, but your armor almost completely stopped the attack.”

“Scorpion?” Claire’s eyes widened slightly. Meghan nodded.

“Oh, yeah. Jaxie and I accidentally answered the riddle wrong and we had to kill a massive fuck-off scorpion before getting another chance. Point is, her armour is really, really fuckin’ tough.”

The sound of cracking stone seeped into the room, causing all of the girls to whip their heads around and examine. Where previously the four walls were featureless and flat, fractures and splits spread like shattered glass all over the surface. However, they weren’t random cracks. Jasmine saw looping shapes, geometric angles and clean curves. She saw eyes and trees and teeth. She saw letters carved into the stone like an ancient inscription, each wall showing something different.

One wall showed a towering mountain covered in rivers all flowing in different directions. Above it, words read out; FOUR PAINS CONTROL THE MOUNTAIN FEAR.

The next wall showed a forest, with one tree rising many times higher than the rest. From the branches hung dozens of ropes, and from those ropes hung what were clearly just as many bodies. Above it; THREE STORMS RAGE FOR GROVE OF WAR.

The next had two featureless individuals on their knees and wrapped in chains, with the chains all connecting back to what looked like a human heart lying on the ground. TWO PEOPLE TRAPPED FOR LOST PUNISH.

The last was the most unsettling, mostly because Jasmine wasn’t entirely sure what she was looking at. It was eyes- hundreds of them. All in different shapes and sizes. Spaced between were noses, ears, teeth, lips, and other facial features, yet none of it was in any kind of proper position. Like someone took a thousand painted portraits, cut them all up, then dumped the pieces in a massive pile on the floor. Above it bore the phrase; ONE SOUL AWAKENS THE ENDLESS BEAST.

Jasmine watched Nima furrow her brow. “That’s the poem.”

All the girls looked at her. “What?”

“In my puzzle, the poem in Ra’lan I had to read out loud. This is it.”

A moment of silence, broken naturally by Meghan. “It’s a pretty shitty poem. It doesn’t even rhyme.”

Nima rolled her eyes so hard Jasmine thought they were going to fall out of her head.

“It was a poem in Ra’lan, not Common. It rhymed in the old language- this is the translated version, so it obviously won’t rhyme.”

Meghan let out a little “Huh. Alright, new question; what the fuck does any of this mean?”

“I think it’s a prophecy…” Alex mumbled, eyes wide.

Claire looked around the murals. “A prophecy, and presumably one about Eris if everything else is an indication.” Her eyes flicked back towards Jasmine and Alex. “Are you two going to tell us what’s going on, or are you going to keep pretending that this isn’t extremely incriminating against your mutual girlfriend?”

Jasmine and Alex shared a glance that held for many seconds before Jasmine let her shoulders slump. Her one job was to keep Eris’s secret safe, and now it was being revealed for the second time in twelve hours. She grit her teeth.

“Eris is an Artificer.”

---

While her eyes were trained unflinching on the CDF floor spread out before her, the invisible sensor just inside the door to Eris’s shop tickled her ears with the sound of Bailey’s giggling.

“I don’t know what I expected from a Lust-infused war axe, but that is WAY better.”

Then Eris’s voice- so strained that Leyla could hear the way she must have been blushing. “Can we please not talk about it?”

“Aww, why not?” A bit of shuffling. “I bet Jaxie will have a lot of fun with this. Honestly, we could probably give it a test run right now and see how well it works.”

“No!” Eris chirped way too fast. Leyla audibly heard some movement, then Bailey spoke.

“What are you doing? Wait, are you hiding it? Seriously?”

“It’s embarrassing! Plus, you know- it’s evidence. What if someone finds it?”

“Okay, you tell me- who’s gonna break into the workshop of a random first-level Artisan and look around for a magic, horny axe?”

Leyla had to keep from chuckling at the irony. After all, that was the last thing she heard from inside the shop before her senses swapped and the noise of the CDF returned to her ears. Meanwhile, she could now see the shape of Eris quickly stuffing a one-handed axe underneath a pile of leather scraps on one of the storage shelves. A location that Leyla noted in her head so that she could find it later- just like the special dick-growing potions and the healing potion locked in one of Bailey’s storage cabinets in her shop. As soon as Eris stepped away from the shelf, Leyla felt her face itch as she switched her senses back around. She had already missed a number of sentences- being unable to read their lips from this angle.

“No- no more making stuff today,” Eris said. “I’ve already got a lot I need to figure out and I… I just need a break.”

“Oh, sure. I get it. This is all pretty overwhelming, and your girlfriends are currently delving into hostile environments created by one of the most dangerous and mysterious artifacts in the world. Lots of stress going on in that cute little noggin of yours. Actually, why don’t we get some lunch? We can have a little picnic at the Obelisk.”

“At the Obelisk? Why?”

A pause, as if Bailey was truly confused at Eris asking such a question. “Uhh, probably because it’s actually quite a lovely park. I try to have my lunch there at least twice a week- it’s also great for catching up on all the latest gossip in the other sectors. You wouldn’t imagine the kind of tea that people spill.”

“Why… why are people dumping tea at the Obelisk?”

“No- it’s not actual tea, it’s… eh, forget it. Roommate lunch date, you in or out?”

“...Okay. I’ll see if I can’t whip up something to eat-”

“Nah, don’t bother. Have you ever had a sandwich made by an eighth-level Culinarian?”

“No?”

“Oh, Miranda’s got an egg-salad and bacon club that is to DIE for.”

Leyla heard Eris hesitate. “I can’t afford food that high of a level…”

“Bitch, at what point did I imply that this wasn’t my treat? I’m buying us some fantastic sandwiches, and I’m taking you out for a relaxing and stress-free lunch. Now chop-chop cutiepie, we’re burnin’ daylight.”

Eris gave a little squeak and Leyla heard a distinct sound of a gentle slap. From previous interactions, Leyla knew for a fact that Bailey just playfully smacked Eris’s butt. Either way, it initiated a quick segment of Leyla slyly following them to the second floor and watching as they procured their food of choice, then keeping a safe distance while tailing them to the Obelisk.

In such a public space with so many people and so much foot traffic, Leyla genuinely didn’t expect any special information of any kind to be shared between the two girls. Still, she had a job to do, so Leyla subtly took up a standing position in the ring of Syndicate guards standing watch around the Obelisk- putting herself pretty much exactly halfway between the monolith and the two crafters she was intently watching. At least with it being so open, she could visually see them and what they were doing while also keeping a hearing sensor placed directly in front of the bench they were seated on.

Unsurprisingly, not much interesting happened. A number of people gave a passing greeting to Bailey, who then introduced her roommate, and simple pleasantries were shared. In between that and the bites of their sandwich, Eris did ask some questions about specific alchemy processes- with both the questions and the answers making Leyla’s head spin trying to understand.

Everything changed when Leyla heard a muttered “Wait, hold on…” and saw Eris leaning forward and staring intently in her direction. Leyla didn’t react- reactions meant proof of wrongdoing. Instead, she kept her face where it had been pointed slightly off to the side and stared out of the corner of her eye. From this distance, there would be no way for the girl to tell that Leyla had been watching them, but there was always the persistent risk of being recognized as the other individual in the office when Eris lied about her Gifting. Being questioned wouldn’t be an issue- there was no reason for Eris to doubt that Leyla had simply been stationed on watch duty for the Obelisk at this time. No- the problem would arise if it made Eris feel uneasy or alert. The girl would become watchful in the future- she’d be harder to tail without raising suspicion.

Of course, Leyla’s immediate apprehensions about the difficulties of being acknowledged turned out to be for naught. Eris lowered her voice to a whisper that was still audible thanks to Leyla’s hearing sensor.

“Is the Obelisk… glowing?”

Bailey visibly followed the redhead’s gaze past Leyla, who struggled to avoid turning herself out of curiosity. She watched Bailey shrug. “I don’t see anything. What do you see?”

“I… I don’t really know. It’s like a shimmer. Along the surface, right towards the bottom.”

“Are you sure?”

Eris didn’t respond with words. Instead, Leyla idly watched as Eris stood from the bench, leaving the paper wrapper from her finished sandwich behind and began slowly stepping towards both Leyla and the monolith.

“Oh, okay. I guess we’re checking it out.” Bailey mumbled under her breath and stood to follow, at which point Leyla took advantage of the standard standing pose with both hands behind her back. It let her drag one finger along the back of the leather band hidden under the cuff of her suit and will the sound sensor to follow her line of sight, and thus the girls. As they started to get closer, Eris gasped.

“Woah.”

“What?” Bailey whispered. Eris didn’t speak as the pair walked right up and past Leyla. The Abjurist did an idle pivot in her position a few seconds later so that she could maintain visual contact without appearing to raise suspicion. Both Eris and Bailey stopped about twenty feet from the base of the massive black marble pillar, and Eris was visibly ogling it (which wasn’t all that out of the ordinary for people who got to see it up close for the first time). However, Eris’s voice was low and quiet, so much that Leyla needed to shift the sensor to the tiny inches of space between the two as they whispered.

“It’s covered in golden lines,” Eris said.

“What? I don’t see anything.”

“I couldn’t see it at first, either. I guess I was too far when I Inspected it that first time, but now that I’m up close… it’s covered in runes. All written in golden light.”

“Like… how many runes are we talking?”

Eris gave a wide-eyed sigh. “I dunno- millions? Like, every square inch is covered.”

Leyla watched Eris take another step forward, and Bailey visibly hesitated. “Uhh, maybe we shouldn’t get so close.”

Eris completely ignored the Alchemist and was staring straight up the length of the monolith. “The cracks are dripping light. It’s pouring down and ruining the runes. They’re all smudged and deformed.”

“Okay, cool, but whatever you do- don’t touch the thing. We aren’t warriors- you’ll actually die if you go into the Obelisk.” Bailey glanced over towards a party of six that had exited the Obelisk about a minute and a half prior- appearing back in the world right beside it in a flash of black smoke. They were still standing nearby and appeared to be going through a large sack of loot. Leyla could hear the clinking of glass bottles within.

Eris recoiled and stopped about three feet from the surface of the pillar. “Well, obviously I’m not going to touch it. I’m not suicidal. I’m just looking at all the runes and seeing if I recognize any.”

“Do you?”

She squinted. “Hmm, only a few. I know a decent bit of Ra’lan, but not very much in terms of the old runes themselves. I recognize a few obvious ones like Grohl and Grihm- Life and Death. I see Kadell- Soul. I’m pretty sure that one is Meri- Peace, but I don’t really know. Actually, there might legitimately be the entire Ra’lan dictionary on this thing. There’s thousands of runes, and they’re all repeating.”

“Maybe they were drawn by the Artificers as part of the crafting process to give whatever magic this thing has, and since you’re one you can see them.”

Eris shrugged. “That was my running theory. It does give slightly more credence to the idea that if I can properly figure this thing out, I might just be able to help repair the damage to it. I mean, I can literally see the magic oozing out of the cracks.”

Bailey stayed quiet for a second. Leyla could hear the popping of corks as the nearby group started doing the extremely-rudimentary way of identifying unknown alchemical products without a crafter; giving it a whiff. If it smelled terrible, burned your nostrils, or made you feel lightheaded, there was probably a seventy-ish percent chance it was some kind of poison. Certainly not the most reliable method, but since the group was clearly intending to go right back inside and clear another environment, a seventy percent chance of possibly identifying some kind of weapon they could use against their enemies was one many parties ended up taking. In fact, Leyla could still remember her third year when she accidentally ‘poisoned’ a hydra with an Enlarge potion. Not fun.

Leyla mentally shook the memory away and focused back on the conversation as Bailey spoke.

“The Syndicate would really, really like to hear about all this. I mean, if you can Inspect the Obelisk and see its magic, imagine all the unidentified Artificer artifacts they have under lock and key that you could figure out for them. Who knows? They might already end up having something that could change the tide of the war against the Hollow itself but simply don’t know it because they can’t figure out what most of the shit even does. You have figured out more information about everything we don’t understand in less than a week, than the Syndicate has learned in four hundred years.”

Eris remained quiet for many moments. “I really, really want to argue against that.”

“But you can’t?”

Eris glumly shook her head. Leyla could hear the anxiety in the girl’s voice. “I’ll wait for Jaxie, Alex and the others to get back. Then tomorrow, I guess I’ll talk to the Dean and tell him everything. I just really, really don’t want this whole thing to get out of hand with politics and stuff.”

Bailey shrugged. “Yeah, my dad’s a nihilistic douchebag. His entire ideal is that the world is going to end no matter what, so the family should remain in absolute power and keep the monarchy until there’s literally nobody left to bow to the family. If he figures out that you’re an Artificer, I can personally guarantee that he is going to do the scummiest, most immoral and horrific things to get you under his control- whether the Syndicate is protecting you or not. All he cares about is holding the power, and you are now the power.”

Both girls stayed quiet, but Leyla watched Bailey give a playful elbow to Eris’s side. “Eh, but I’m sure the Syndicate will understand what a high priority you are, and how much risk it is if your secret is known. Even if you tell them, I can pretty much guarantee they’ll keep it as hush-hush as possible for as long as possible.”

A moment of silence, then Eris turned and gave Bailey a hug so tight Leyla could practically feel it from two dozen feet away. Bailey patted Eris on the back and chuckled. “Wanna go back to your shop? I can teach you how to make that all-in-one shampoo stuff I’ve got.”

Eris nodded into Bailey’s shoulder, then she pulled away after a few more seconds. The pair turned to leave and they began walking back towards-

Leyla felt the air pressure drop so fast her ears popped and a bit of breath was sucked from her lungs. The world was ringing a little bit, but it did nothing to stop the sound of rushing wind oncoming like a hurricane. Eyes flicked over in a matter of milliseconds towards movement from the right- specifically the party that had been examining their haul of over a dozen unidentified bottled concoctions. One of them, a boy likely in his second or third year, yelped in sudden pain as a perfectly rounded glass bottle completely shattered in his hand the instant the cork was pulled for a whiff.

He was launched up and off his feet like he took a battering ram to the chest, getting flung almost thirty feet directly backwards. By some miracle, he and the rest of the party seemed to be positioned just perfectly to avoid getting launched into the monolith of black stone rising in the middle of the pit, and were all scattered by the torrent of wind and lightning that was released from the mixture. Leyla had only encountered such a concoction once before in the Obelisk.

Bottled Storms.

Electricity crackled outwards alongside a clap of thunder from the accidental release of a handheld, instantaneous thunderstorm. At the same time, Leyla was forced onto her back foot from the wind pressure that also caused every single tree in the park surrounding the Obelisk to shudder and shift.

Oh, shit.

Eyes blinking and watering from the intense wind glanced over to see both of the crafters, who were closer to the blast than Leyla, getting completely knocked off their feet and thrown backwards- directly towards the Obelisk. With the reflexes of a sixteenth-level and well-seasoned mage, Leyla flicked out her marred, disfigured hand. An invisible plate of force stretched out like a wall between the girls and the Obelisk, manifesting into existence in less time than it took for a hummingbird to flap a wing.

Unfortunately, the instant storm forcing her to blink, the disorientation of sudden air pressure change, and herself being forced backwards all combined just enough to throw off her accuracy.

Bailey bounced and thudded against the shield, stopped about a foot from impacting the Obelisk. One hand was gripped firmly onto Eris’s- presumably having clutched on instinctually for any kind of stability when they were launched by the storm. Eris, however, flew right past the edge of the ever-so-slightly misplaced barrier and thudded her back firmly against the black stone of the Obelisk. Leyla could also see that Eris’s gaze had flicked over to the Abjurist’s sudden movements and the pair locked eyes.

Eris’s form instantly turned translucent- clouded by black smoke that surrounded both her and the girl she was holding hands with. After all, the only way to go into the Obelisk as a party or group was to maintain physical contact with each other when touching the monolith. Leyla watched the briefest flash of pink light ripple up the black surface of the Obelisk, but then an all-too-familiar sensation washed through her.

Her skin went cold, but also ran hot at the same time. The air was torn from her lungs and her sense of balance was briefly thrown out of whack. Despite her vision going blurry for a split-second, she could still clearly see Eris’s piercing greens focused on her in panic and desperation. Leyla felt a pull in her chest almost seem to tug her forward, forcing her to fall flat on her face. But not on the paved cobblestones surrounding the Obelisk.

Instead, her cheek met smooth, cold marble floors. Less than half a second later, she had shot back to her feet in a flash of movement, her left hand had swiftly pulled free the Leviathan’s Veil orb, and an invisible dome of force about fifteen feet in diameter manifested in a form of emergency protection- around both her and the two girls standing just beside her.

Eris, Bailey, and Leyla all glanced quickly to survey the surroundings- walls of white marble bricks that matched the floor spanning a long hallway filled with paintings and tapestries of various people Leyla didn’t recognize. About fifty feet in one direction it turned a sharp corner, and the other direction ended solidly in a heavy but intricately carved wooden door. There were no windows or visible light sources, but the hallway was still perfectly illuminated regardless.

“What the- what just happened?!” Bailey’s voice raised entire octaves in panic. “Who are you? Where are- mmph!”

Leyla spun and clasped a hand over Bailey’s mouth, silencing the girl while Leyla listened intently and spun her gaze around. Thankfully, both of her companions seemed to understand the message quickly and went quiet. The hallway was as still as a tomb and Leyla couldn’t see any immediate threats. After several seconds, she removed her scarred hand from Bailey’s mouth and spoke in a low whisper.

“You two just fell into the Obelisk.” Her eyes turned to Eris. “And you managed to take me with you.”