The hexagonal hatch groaned, a sound of metal surrendering after centuries of silence. Lauri pushed it open, the cold, dead air of the Progenitor’s Cradle washing over them. It was the price of their unified plan: to leave the living world behind and descend into its tomb. The air did not smell of soil or rain, but of ozone and rust, a sterile scent that scraped the back of his throat. He dropped into the darkness, landing with a splash in ankle-deep, frigid water.
Anastasya followed, her energy rifle held tight, its small guide-light cutting a sharp, blue-white cone into the oppressive black. Jukka landed last, his old bones creaking in protest. They stood in a circular chamber at the bottom of a long tube. Corridors of rusted metal branched off in every direction, their floors slick with water and shadow. The only other light came from pools of Corrosive Myxoid that pulsed with a sick, internal luminescence, the black sludge glowing like dying coals. The nearest pool was twenty meters away, its glow seeming to brighten as it sensed their warmth, their life.
— It can feel us, — Jukka rasped, his voice a dry whisper in the echoing space. — The energy leaking from this place makes us into beacons.
Lauri felt it too, a low, hungry thrum directed at them. It was the opposite of the grove’s life-song, a discordant hymn of decay. He instinctively reached for the Nectar Flask at his belt, his fingers finding only empty air and the rough fabric of his tunic. The phantom limb of his addiction ached for a moment, then was gone, replaced by the cold clarity of the mission.
A metallic scrape echoed from the corridor to their left. Anastasya snapped her rifle up, its light pinning a silhouette against a far wall. The figure was tall, clad in the severe lines of a Regalis uniform, but it was not Gerasim. It was not one of his black-armored guards. The figure raised its hands slowly, palms open.
— Wait, — a voice called out, strained and familiar.
The man stepped into the light. It was Mikhail Kuznetsov, the Regalis engineer from the pump-house, his face pale with shame and exhaustion. His uniform was stained, and the intricate geometric pattern of the Weft of Vigil stitched on his collar seemed like a brand of his failure.
— I am a builder, not a destroyer, — Mikhail said, his voice cracking. The words were an offering, a confession. — I designed the flow regulators for the canals. I never knew what they were using them for. When Gerasim’s forces moved out, I followed you. Let me help.
Anastasya held her rifle steady, her gaze hard as crystal. To trust another Regalis, a man who was part of the very system that had created this poison, felt like a betrayal of Dmitri, of Ilmar. But his eyes held no deception, only a profound, hollowing guilt she recognized from the mirror of her own recent past. This was not a soldier following orders. This was a man choosing active maintenance over the passive decay of his own soul.
— Help how? — she asked, her tone clipped.
In response, Mikhail held up a Regalis data-slate. He pressed a thumb to its surface, and it glowed to life, displaying a complex network of lines and conduits.
— I don’t have the full schematics for this place, — the engineer admitted. — Nobody does. But I have the precursor energy grid overlays. I can see the power flows. I can see the traps.
He had brought them a map. He had brought them his expertise. The team, fractured and desperate, had just gained a new, vital component. Anastasya lowered her rifle by a few centimeters. It was a choice, and the price was the last of her certainty.
— Show us the way, builder, — Lauri said, his voice quiet but firm.
Mikhail nodded, his relief palpable. He turned his attention to the slate, his technical focus a shield against his shame. He pointed down the right-hand corridor.
— This way. The main conduit is shielded, so it should have fewer Corrosive Myxoid blooms. But watch the floor. The schematics show pockets of severe gravitational distortion. Unstable.
They moved as a unit, a strange alliance of Silvanus shaman, fallen warden, heretic officer, and guilt-ridden engineer. The corridor was a long, echoing tube of weeping metal. Mikhail led them, his eyes fixed on the glowing slate. He stopped abruptly, holding up a hand.
— Here, — he whispered, pointing to a section of flooring ahead that looked identical to the rest. — The distortion is strong.
Lauri could feel it now that he was looking for it. A strange pressure in the air, a place where sound seemed to die. Dust motes stirred by their passage swirled in an unnatural vortex a meter from the floor, spiraling into a point of nothingness. They gave the spot a wide berth, the pull on their clothes a tangible warning of the lethal hazard they had just bypassed.
They continued for another hundred meters before Mikhail stopped them again. The corridor ahead opened into a long, straight hall.
— Automated defenses, — he said, pointing. — Precursor tech. Failing, but still active.
Down the hall, a series of turrets mounted on the ceiling sparked and whirred. One of them spat a volley of crystal shards that ricocheted off the metal walls with sharp cracks. The weapon’s accuracy was a mere forty percent, but its firing was sporadic, unpredictable. It was a gauntlet of random death.
— We can’t go back, and we can’t get through that, — Anastasya stated, assessing the tactical problem.
Lauri stepped forward, his eyes scanning the length of the hall. He closed them. The world of light and shadow vanished, replaced by the hum of energy he was learning to read. The failing turrets were not just random. They were part of a system. A broken, sputtering system, but a system nonetheless. He could feel the charge cycle, the misfires, the stuttering rhythm of the targeting sensors. It was a discordant song, but it had a pattern.
He felt the pulse of the firing command, then a pause. Another pulse, another pause. There were gaps.
— There are safe intervals, — Lauri said, his eyes still closed. — A three-second window after every third volley.
He opened his eyes, his gaze locking with Anastasya’s. The trust between them was no longer a fragile thing. It was a weapon.
— On my mark, — he said.
The turret fired. Shards screamed down the hall. It fired again. Silence. Lauri took a breath. The third volley erupted.
— Now.
They ran.
