The ocean pressed in as I appeared outside the Golden Halls, the Waygate shutting off behind me. My gaze was drawn upwards, to the empty waters above. Not so much as a school of darting silverfish dwelled there. A sign of the Sahevin closing in. Much as Rainbow might be shielding the eastern coast, that didn’t prevent the Sahevin from moving to surround us. I moved over to the console that allowed access deeper into the Golden Halls of Ascension. A single new entry had been added to the list. -The Abyss. The rıghtful source is 𝙣𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙡⁂𝔣𝔦𝔯𝔢⁂𝘯𝘦𝘵 There weren’t any extra descriptions or messages attached. At least, not at the console. I almost clicked it, hand hovering over the golden lettering. However, there were other functions of Utility Access I wanted to check first. Ones that might give me a better idea of what sort of trouble it might dump me into. The first was the room where we’d been awakening the Tethered. A room that was currently empty of Tethered, until we’d dealt with the Sahevin. If things went wrong, there hadn’t been a way to cancel the process. A few presses at the enchanted tablet attached to one and I confirmed that had changed. It also proved that there were several additional options that had been hidden. Mostly for performing repairs and diagnostics to the equipment. Including an option to simply siphon mana in to effect said repairs. If we hadn’t been using up all the spare mana to awaken people in the first place, I’d be more miffed about that. There wasn’t much more in the chamber, all of the extra menus being directly related to the machines themselves. So, onto the diagnostic chamber I went. There too, I found mostly local knowledge, though it gave me everything I needed design-wise to build my own personal diagnostic chamber outside where anyone could use it. The materials required were insane though. Apparently it was currently using a tier-7 Eternity affinity core. That was… I’d never even heard of any tier-7 materials existing. And it was using one of the rarest I knew of. Still, there were plans for a weaker version, one that would only be useful for the first three tiers, that I took note of for later. It only required an exorbitant amount of tier-3 materials, all of which I was fairly certain we could get through Spellford, eventually. While I was there, I did a quick scan of my physical attributes, wincing at one word in particular. Body - Tier 3 - Blooming - Stunted Despite the improvements, when I focused on Stunted, it indicated I’d burned out my path forward. I’d need to break apart the foundation I’d been building, then encourage new growth. Not something I had the time for at the moment. On the plus side, Hydra-soul already required the rebuilding of the physical self to varying degrees, so I was hopeful it might mitigate the worst of the effects. The diagnostic chamber didn’t have an answer to that, which was a smidge worrying, and reminded me that Tender’s trials were experimental. I also got a hint at what the Abyss could be. There was no sign of the Primary Ascension Chambers the diagnostic center often referred to. Considering how important such a room was, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’d been renamed, much like most of the ascension assistance locations Keeper’s brothers guarded. The next stop on my list was the library. The massive chamber was cold and dark, and the lone tablet near the entrance indicated that assisted searching and sorting were both inactive. It was so broken that the only thing it would tell me was that it needed to be repaired before it could tell me more. Would only take as many materials as building the tier three scanner to get the basics online. A casual walk through, inspecting the stone shelves filled with nothing but dust, told me I wasn’t likely to find much anyway. The last place I visited was the Reflections chamber. Even as I materialized, the air seemed to burn. Not with actual fire. There was a jagged brokenness to the space within the room. The nearby console was practically screaming at me to shut everything down. Including a countdown timer that had less than an hour left on it, with the words ‘Implosion even imminent,’ slapped down next to it. Swearing, I moved over to the console, which, of course wasn’t working properly. It took me a minute to just get the console to let me access the shutdown function, small tears appearing in my skin and robe every second I worked at the console, forcing me to use Restore form just to keep manipulating it, Aegis completely failing to block the damage. This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. After I did, it gave me the option to shut everything down. When I selected the option, it, of course, failed to shut anything down. Instead, it displayed a list of operations I’d need to do to safely deactivate the room. “You’ve gotta be… gah,” I said as another line appeared, this one deep inside my cheek. Casting Restore Form, I grumbled as I moved into the room, careful to move around the worst of the strange distortions. Worlds magic, from what Reveal Magic said. Just really turbulent Worlds magic. Each of the Mirrors was huge, easily tall enough for three Inertias to walk through side by side without bumping into each other. All of them had dark stone ringing them, stone that reminded me of Waygates. Didn’t have time to inspect them now. Instead, I had to pull out physical components, each of which was covered in a black coating. Reminded me a bit of the dust I’d found in the barrels along with the silver dust back when we’d first moved into Tetherfall. Pulling out Calbern’s handkerchief again, I started cleaning. Which worked for all of one mirror. Considering the mess the room had made of my clothes, it didn’t take me long to tear my robe into more rags. Hadn’t had to do that much on Ro’an, though I had plenty of experience turning clothes into cleaning rags back on Earth. With my new stock, I worked my way around the room. My remaining clothes were half soaked with blood, but the components were all cleaned. Even had a solid half hour left on the countdown. Sighing, I leaned up against the wall, taking a better look around the room. It was vaguely familiar. The giant mirrors set into their dark gateways reflected the dim light of the overhead lamps off their now smooth silver surfaces. Closer inspection had revealed they weren’t actually mirrors. They were a newer version of the Waygates we’d been using. Newer, but not better. Reviewing the now functional console, all of them had been attempting to connect to anchors that were no longer there. And in doing so, they’d been using up most of the facility’s mana, pumping it off into… I honestly couldn’t tell they used a whole other coordinate system. Wasn’t anywhere close to Cape Aeternia though. The people who’d used these halls had only been able to use the Mirrorgates to leave, not to come back. Unfortunately, each Mirrorgate required an anchor which had to be bound to a specific location. The destruction of all the old anchors was what was causing so many issues in the first place. That and the fact the enchanters who built them hadn’t included something as simple as an automatic shutdown. Just the manual one that had failed. Technically, I still hadn’t shut them down, I’d just kept them from destroying the place. Now that I had, the shut down worked, the rippling silver surface disappearing from each, one at a time. This room would definitely be useful, once we repaired it and built anchors. It was honestly pretty primitive stuff. Look pretty though. The range of the Mirrorgates wasn’t great but I could already see how we could improve them. Assuming I could get others inside, eventually. Nexxa was the only one who could even access any of the rooms other than the Experimental Ascension chamber where Balthum had made the ladies into golems, and she hadn’t been given a quest to get Utility Access. It might honestly be better to simply build our own versions, scavenging the existing gates for materials. Not much harder, either. Turning back to the console, my hand hovered over the last item on the list. The Abyss. I was going to meet Depths there, I was certain. The last of Keeper’s brothers. And one that each of the others had warned me about, in their own ways. Pushing down the tinge of fear that found its way in, I laid my hand atop the button and was swept away in a golden shower of light. I appeared in a chamber so dark, that even when I held my hand up to project light, it seemed to be sapped away. There was a single point of light, barely visible directly overhead. A deep blue, bordering on black, visible only because of the lack of other light within the space. After a few seconds of staring into that darkness, something stirred, and circles of golden light scattered throughout the room flashed on, revealing it for what it was. While the Golden Halls of ascension were currently under the ocean, they hadn’t been built there. They’d once sat above the water, amongst hundreds of other buildings. The same clearly didn’t apply to this chamber. I knew immediately that I wasn’t in the Golden Halls anymore. It really had sent me to the Abyss. In the center of the room was the only feature other than the dark transparent walls. At a glance, it was like its brothers. Skeletal frame, eyes filled with a deep blue fire, and horns wide as it was tall. The main difference was in the way it stood. A stiff but relaxed stance, with its clawed hands behind its back, standing at casual attention. It took me a second to realize its neck was shorter than the others. Mainly because I was stuck on the collection of screaming faces that bubbled up from between its ribs, only to be grabbed and pulled inside by phantom claws that looked just like Depths’ own. “Welcome, Magus Protectus,” Depths spoke, its voice having a faint clicking to it, each syllable cutting off harshly. “To the Abyss.” “Quite the place you’ve got here. I was honestly expecting… more,” I said, inspecting the extensive enchantments worked into the floor, not taking a single step off the golden transport platform. “The Abyss is exactly what it was always meant to be. A prison,” Depths replied, shifting slightly as if to match my movements, keeping both those glowing blue orbs of fire locked on me. “You know, your brothers at least got a task to take care of. You seem to have been left to your own devices,” I said, gesturing around us. “How deep are we, anyway? Shouldn’t the pressure be doing some nasty stuff to my anatomy?” “My jailers would hardly have subjected themselves to the inconvenience of their servants imploding each time they sent one to check on me,” Depths replied, still shifting in place. “Especially since dying so close would ensure their own turn within and offer me a possible route to escape.” As if to emphasize its point, a pale phantom face emerged from the darkness within its hollow ribcage, screaming silently as twisted black hands emerged, dragging it back as it squirmed. Despite the fact the enchantments on the floor indicated Depths shouldn’t be able to move, I remained in place, hand hovering over the command to take me away. After all, Keeper had found ways to break free of its chains and Depths had nothing but time. Not that I blamed it for wanting freedom, but between the screaming souls and the effort someone had put into keeping it trapped, I wasn’t about to make it easy for it to kill me. “This isn’t the Primary Ascension Chamber I need to repair, is it?” “It is not. Though you’re closer than you might think,” Depths said, shifting its gaze up and over my shoulder. While not letting my attention leave the being, I shifted slightly, glancing over and up. Climbing a massive cliff face behind me was a huge complex of buildings, with huge pipes, heavy enchantments and large spinning fans. All of which sat cold and silent.