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Theocratic-Monarchy: SunSide
23rd Day of Month 6, Year 1628 DG
The rooftop fades, they journey through the void, and the Bunker forms around them.
Teleporting is complex, and requires a significant amount of Radiant energy, but slivers of the human Radiance still remain in Symin’s veins.
Salessa frantically searches the map of the Castrum, her eyes swollen, her cheeks red. She’s startled when they appear in the Bunker without warning.
“Where is she?!” Symin questions, volume high, blood rising to his skin.
Salessa turns back to her panicked perusal. “I-I don’t know.”
Symins fist lands hard and rattles the wooden table.
Salessa jumps backward, moisture developing in her eyes.
“Can you hear her or not, Salessa?!”
Kruga places a hand on Symin’s chest. “You’re not helping. Calm the fuck down.”
The younger nymph’s words blanket Symin and he takes in Salessa’s distress. Her expression starts to crumble into a mix of fear and hopelessness. The nymph realizes he isn’t angry. Not at Salessa, not at anyone.
He’s terrified.
He steps forward and gently takes Salessa’s hand, leading her back to the wooden table. “I’m sorry, Salessa.” He gestures to the map of the Castrum, lowering his volume, softening his tone. “Think. Where could she be?”
Salessa wipes her eyes and her expression hardens as she scans the many structures and starts speaking quickly.
“Six towers. Eight buildings. Last heard from her when he took her.” Her eyes hectically trace the map until they widen with alarm. Her finger shoots down to a section of the ore walls behind the laboratory building. “What is this?”
“The walls,” Kruga responds.
Salessa growls. “Why do they jut out like this?” Salessa traces her finger along the walls surrounding the Castrum, until she reaches a portion that extends a few yards out and then retreats in again, forming an apparently random alcove.
“He has her in the labs,” Symin says. “Where he’s developing the changeling.”
Kruga shakes his head. “This isn’t a public project. He can’t use government labs.”
“He needs access to his equipment and workers, doesn’t he?” Salessa asks. “And this wall has clearly been shifted to accommodate something.”
Kruga’s expression ignites with realization. “He’s not in the labs. He’s under them.” He places his hand on Symin’s shoulder. “Take me to the alcove.”
The nymph makes a wide circle with his arm, and as they begin to fade, Salessa grabs Symin’s other shoulder. She joins them in the void of the Radiance, and then in the alcove behind the laboratory building, where she drops to her hands and knees and begins to dry heave.
Symin kneels next to her and rubs her back. “What are you doing?”
“She’s my s-sister.” Salessa coughs. “I just need a second.”
“I found it,” Kruga says, hands extended to the ground in the alcove. “There’s hollow space here. A lot of it. And it extends under the labs.”
Symin turns back to Salessa. “I know that was difficult for you, but we have to keep moving.”
Salessa nods, and he helps her to her feet.
“Hold your breath and close your eyes this time.”
She follows his instructions and they teleport into a wide chamber brimming with laboratory equipment. The tables and machinery seem to be made of ore, yet the walls are stone brick. There are no windows, only lighting panels that don’t seem to be operating at full capacity, giving the room a dim sinisterness.
“Are you alright?” Symin asks Salessa.
She nods silently, focused on something ahead.
Beyond the many laboratory tables ahead of them, beyond the heavy equipment and machinery lining the walls, beyond the jars and vials and canisters of fluids and chemicals stored around the chamber, is a row of cots against the rear wall.
Four cots. The two on the ends are empty, while one is covered with a metal dome, forming a massive container, and the fourth cot is occupied by a skeletal figure.
Salessa steps toward it and Symin calls to her. “Where are you going?”
Silence. It’s as if the figure calls to her. She gravitates past the ore tables, past the machines, past the glass containers, and the two Mega follow closely behind her, keeping their palms raised, ready to access the Radiance when needed.
Salessa clutches Symin for support when they reach the cot. The nymph realizes what Salessa noticed upon arrival in the chamber.
The skeletal figure is Naina.
She’s unrecognizable. All life and energy has been drained from her. Her face is thin, shriveled skin stretched over bones. Her hair seems to be falling out, and her eyes have lost all glow.
She’s unclothed. There are cuts and wounds all over her body, indicative of torture. Symin surmises the Facilitator wanted Salessa’s location and Naina wouldn’t give it to him. There are three ore cuffs around her body: one around each of her biceps, and one around her waist.
Symin’s constitution quivers, as well. His darkest memories collect in the forefront of his mind; the corpses of his dearest friend and his daughter dance on the periphery of his consciousness.
“It’s happened again,” he whimpers.
“No,” Kruga responds. He holds his palm out over Naina’s body. “It’s faint, but she still has a pulse.”
“She’s alive?” Salessa asks.
Kruga’s gaze falters. “Barely.”
Salessa places a hand on her head and kisses her forehead. “We’re going to leave here together. I promise.”
“How is he getting the energy out of her?” Symin asks.
Kruga taps the ore cuffs with his finger. “Similar technology to the lighting panels. Pulling and storing Radiant energy, without the additional step of converting it into light. He can place the same cuffs on the changeling and inject the stored energy into it.”
“But he doesn’t have me,” Salessa says.
Kruga nods. “Naina holds an immeasurable amount of raw energy, but it still won’t be enough to forge an essence. Only both of you, together, can do that.”
He turns to the massive container next to Naina’s cot. “The changeling must be in there. He’s protecting it.”
“Can we inject the stored energy in the cuffs back into Naina?” Symin asks.
Kruga hesitates. “I can try.”
He points to a small machine on a table next to Naina’s cot, with a series of dials and a sliding needle on the face. “The cuffs are controlled there. We’ll have to play with the dials until it revers—”
A bright blue light swallows them and launches Kruga over the cots, slamming his body against the stone wall at the end of the chamber.
Symin turns to the source of the blast. Standing a few yards away, by a staircase leading up to the ground floor, is Saith.
“Get her out, now,” he whispers to Salessa, who leaps over Naina’s body and begins fiddling with the machine’s dials.
Symin channels the human energy into his palms and releases a beam of red light at the Facilitator. It travels the distance of the chamber, but stops inches from his face, as if there’s an invisible wall protecting him.
“You’ll have to do much better than that,” the Facilitator taunts him.
“I will.”
The nymph forms a fist and brings it quickly down in front of him. The metal panels of the ceiling over Saith’s head drop rapidly down on the pixie. Symin hears the crunch of bone. He teleports quickly to the other side of the room and digs through the damaged panels, but there’s no body.
Symin’s muscles stiffen involuntarily. His body lifts into the air and spins to face the smiling Facilitator.
“You have no idea who you’re dealing with.” He sniffs. “Nymph.”
Arms pinned to his sides, barely breathing, Symin squeezes out what few words he can. “I could say the same about you.”
“Enlighten me. Who am I dealing with?”
“A father. Whose daughter you abducted.”
Saith chuckles. “I’ve abducted many daughters. And sons. And parents and brothers and sisters and wives and husbands. Your fatherhood is as irrelevant as mine. It will be your downfall.”
Light engulfs the room again and Symin is released, dropping onto the hard stone floor. He coughs and gulps air as tears well up in his eyes. Saith raises his arm, blocking and absorbing a purple beam from Kruga, firing from across the room. Symin diverts Radiant energy into his knuckles, pushes up to his feet, and swings his arm around to connect his fist to Saith’s face. The pixie is hit so hard, a shockwave of energy is released, blowing him backward into a stone wall.
Kruga teleports to Symin’s side. “Is he down?”
“Not for long.” He sees Salessa fiddling with the dials and knobs on the machine. “We have to buy her time and lure him to the surface.”
Before Kruga can respond, one of the damaged metal panels lifts into the air and hurtles toward them. Symin performs a chopping motion and the panel splits in half, each shard moving around them. He turns and sees Saith hovering toward them.
“I’m irritated,” the pixie announces.
Kruga places a hand on Symin’s shoulder, but before either can make the teleportation circle, their bodies turn, back-to-back, and slam into one another. They’re being held together, immobile below the neck.
“Eyes!” Symin yells. The younger nymph understands. They channel energy into their eyeballs and release a beam of concentrated energy at the Facilitator.
***
THE MACHINE IS FAR beyond the scope of Salessa’s technical knowledge. There are three dials, each with a semicircle drawn over the top, and a small arrow on the crest of the semicircle.
She kneels down next to the cot. “I need your help, Nain. You have to tell me when you feel the energy coming back in. Do you understand?”
There’s a long, hesitant pause, then Naina’s head slowly tilts up and back down again. It’s as much of an acknowledgement as she can muster.
Salessa moves the first dial slowly toward the left. The more it turns, the louder Naina groans in pain. Salessa quickly moves it back to where it was, then further to the right, beyond the arrow on the semicircle. Naina’s head slowly moves up and down.
“You’re doing great,” Salessa encourages her.
A whisper emerges from Naina’s lips and Salessa puts her ear to Naina’s mouth. “Right...arm.”
Salessa understands. Each dial controls one of the cuffs. She continues to experiment until she’s certain of the direction in which each dial needs to be turned.
After all three dials are turned correctly, color begins to fill Naina’s face again, and a smile curls onto her lips.