Nakulian Year 6238, Ascending Void
Exploration Direction Vote:
1d19 1 - A wins, with 2 votes
You'd kept most of your explorations to the Western side of the Embrace - from what you had seen, only a tiny amount of it was not blocked off by the poison pool that had formed in the dantian room. That meant that for however long that pool was there no one could go further than the initial living quarters you found in your first few weeks of exploring. The fact that not even a single pathway in any cardinal direction besides back to the Embrace was open made it interesting. And while you could explore off the branches of the prison, you figured that the closer you were to the Embrace the more quickly you could make headway on figuring out the extent of the maps.
So to the Dantian room you went. The trip on its own took a few hours, as you carried the large pack of meals on your back. You still had a few cuts from your spar with Aditi, but after a brief self-bandaging you felt good enough to explore. She had already told you not to come tomorrow, which meant you had your evening, the whole night, a whole day, and then a night to get back. It was more free time to focus on one task than you'd ever imagined. You probably could have gotten to the Dantian room quicker, but it would have tired you out to sprint all that way. So the slower jog was your answer. Nothing was amiss in the western halls - the Nakul doors still sat closed, while the other doors all sat opened. A measure you used before you started mapping, to make sure you didn't get lost.
The dantian room looked different under the brighter lights of the day-timed light crystals. Where before they were so dull to barely light up the room, now they were at perhaps a quarter the luminosity of those around your home. It made it remarkably easier to look around the room, at least with your enhanced sight catching the light. The five pillars still stood, all empty without a dantian to hold upon them. In the middle of the five pillars lay nothing you could recognize - the long exposure to the acidic poison had eaten away at everything that may have lay there. Only the golden flooring remained, raised up slightly from where the rest of the floor was.
The northern door was still closed tight, and you had no idea what could lay beyond it. But you didn't hesitate to push it open. It was heavy - heavier than you remembered the southern or western doors being, especially with your enhanced physique still struggling against it. But as you pushed it open enough so that you could look through, you realized why - debris and blockades held the door shut. Someone or something had blockaded this doorway, to keep the Dantian room separated from the northern halls. Luckily for you, as you pushed against the blockades, much of it had disappeared in the years sense. Only the metal braces and large chunks of stone remained - gaps within it telling you that something else once was there.
You didn't hesitate to push the door open despite it. You had to guess that the residents blockaded the door to keep the acidic liquid from pushing them open, or escaping through them. And it seemed to have worked, since you remembered stone melting on introduction. The large rocks that were used to make barricades seemed completely intact to you. You'd never seen stone in such supply before, actually - it and metal could only be harvested from the corpses of dead Farbeasts. They had piled the small boulders high - and that told you that some form of Guardian must have been involved in it. There was no way they could have moved such stones without.
The hallway itself was well lit, compared to those that were around it. Another sign of its well defended interior, where the poison had never touched. Even the southern workshops lights were dimmed by the long term contact with the poison seeping under the door, and entering the air. But here they were as bright as the ones around the second garden on the eastern side. Which still wasn't as bright as back home, but it was more than you ever expected.
Stepping around the mess, the hallway was remarkably empty of doors. Normally as soon as you entered any hallway in the Embrace, there were doors on either side. But this hallway had no doorways along it, as you walked through it. If anything had been on the walls, had it been once decorated in tapestries or paintings or the like... there was no evidence now. It was simply an empty hallway. Luckily this emptiness did not last. After thirty minutes of watching for one, finally a door sat on either side. The hallway continued stretching on without more doors in sight.
Opening one up without an abundance of caution, you came into a huge hall that reached the length of the hallway you had been walking in - and continued further down still, just as the hallway did. It was nearly as large as the Great Hall, that could fit every member of your society comfortably for meals. But it wasn't like the hall at all. Rather than metal ground, there was soft earth under it, like the Garden but packed tightly. So of course, you jumped to thinking you had found a third Garden - it would make sense, for why the room was so large. But no cornucopia crystals existed within. No plants of any kind were growing in that dirt, that gave off a faint brown light to your enhanced sight.
Instead there were small metal dummies sat in the center of the dirt floors, that were giving off a strong collection of metal essence - all of it uniform, a steel grey that gave no room for other colors in it. These metal dummies looked untouched by age, unlike the weapons in the workshop, and glowed near as brightly as your Father's Elder-tiered robe. They were small, and you expected it to be easy as you walked up to one and tried to lift it from its place in the ground. With one hand you grab it by the 'neck' of the human shaped training dummy, and pull it up and out.
It does not move. You strain yourself, lifting with your legs as hard as you can, as you wrap your arms under its armpits... and it does not move. You grunt with effort as you put your back into it. And it does not budge an inch. Your body aches from the attempt to move it, as you stop to keep yourself from straining. The dummy stares back at you with a taunting look on its blank, expressionless face, devoid of any sort of humanizing elements. But you can still
feel it taunting you.
All of the dummies are much the same - indeed, they are exactly the same. From the essence in them, to the way their body is proportioned, to how heavy they are. You cannot tell a single difference from one to another. But it at least helped you narrow down what this room was - it was a training room of some sort, and these dummies were used to train... something. You weren't sure what, exactly, but it was doubtlessly some kind of training room.
The room across the hall was much the same superficially - but the scored sections were much larger, and no dummies could be found. You had to guess that perhaps this was where spars were had? Even searching through the entire set of rooms, you found nothing but the dummies and the dirt flooring of interest between them. And it took far too long for your liking to do so - the rooms were massive, and not well lit enough even with the daytime lights for you to examine them thoroughly from very far. That meant wasting a few hours on rooms where absolutely nothing of value was found - at least not immediate value.
You considered punching one of the dummies in frustration, but you knew that lashing out when you got angry was bad. You had enough self control not to punch Aarav in the nose for actively making fun of you - you weren't going to punch a dummy for being difficult to move. Instead you just closed the doors behind you, and headed further.
When you finally reached what you estimated was the end of the training rooms, you came to a crossroads. A path extended to the left, to the right, and further straight ahead of you. You couldn't see any doorways on the left or rightmost paths, but the northern ward hallway was once again dotted with them. But you did not go that way first. You took the leftmost path - heading further away from the Embrace, as you continued westward. You guessed that the eastern path would, likely, connect up with the northern section closer to the Embrace. And heading straight further north wasn't quite your plan.
The western hall was empty for what felt like another hour - but likely was shorter - before doors began to appear once more. Opening the first door sent a feeling of dread into you, that was answered moments later with nothing. There were no skeletal remains within, there was no horrific gruesome scene where someone tried to claw their way out of a prison. It was a bedroom, and it was remarkably intact. The bookshelf against the wall was missing all its pages, the leather tattered and falling apart at a touch, and the wood-and-metal furniture was bare without any ornamentation besides thick layers of dust... but it still existed.
The room was in fact slightly bigger than your parent's rooms - and you knew that the Guardians had larger rooms than anyone besides the High Priest. You were sure it was once a grand bedroom of some type, for someone of importance most likely - perhaps it was where Nakul's priests lived, when he still walked the halls? You got a little giddy with excitement at the idea of this being such an important place. But searching through it yields you only disappointment - you open armoires to find an armory... that has rusted itself to near uselessness. The essence within so bare that you barely catch specks that it was once imbued. You check in a jewelry box, and find a multitude of shining gems... but nothing useful.
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It took you the remainder of your two day trip to finish going through all of the hallway. The next few rooms were much the same, but as you went through rooms one after another, you noticed that the more south-western rooms were larger, with similarly larger and sturdier looking furniture. Though not sturdy to the point where you could use it - you made the mistake of trying to sit on one of the chairs, only for it to collapse under your weight, leaving you to smack the ground hard with your behind. Even their treasures remained the same - those you found that had the hints of essence were so weak and useless that they were akin to the worthless scraps you'd found in the south-western workshops.
There was just under a hundred of these rooms - ninety eight in total, and a single extra sealed Nakul marked door to bring it to ninety nine. The final two rooms sat next to a large doorway that you expected to push open to find the final hundredth room - the largest of them all, surely, befitting such grand doors. So you pushed it open expecting a grand room, full of treasures and essence filled wonders that you could pick over. You were more correct than you could ever imagine. You weren't sure who possibly could have had this room before, but they had to have been someone grandly important - as even the tapestries on the walls were intact, the essence in them blazing as strongly as your robes had, even with everything other room having only scraps.
You couldn't begin to guess how powerful the random objects within the room had once been, for them to have existed for hundreds(?) of years without even showing hint of physical wear. Why would someone go to such excessive measures to keep tables, chairs, bedding, or similar objects? There were hundreds of objects as strong as what the robes Jute now wore were. It was a blinding painting of colors over every inch of the room, the energy mixing and matching, muddling your ability to guess which was which, and giving you an overwhelming headache just from moments of looking into it. You can feel daggers splitting your skull from the pressure of looking over it, unable to shut out your vision. Even back home you'd rarely seen so many clashing imbuements sharing a single space.
You retched just outside the doorway as the overwhelming visual sensation became too much. Your dinner returned once more, and you did not enjoy the experience at all. You didn't go back in that night, as you made your way back home to the living quarters of the Embrace. You had training again in the morning, and then you'd come back.
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You figured there had to be treasures within that grand room, things that could be used immediately. But trying to search it was an endeavor in discomfort for you. You had to keep your eyes shut for much of when you traversed the room, only narrowing one to a slit to take in the details of the room around you for moments at a time, or it overwhelmed you. Even with those precautions it did overwhelm you each night, forcing you to flee from it before it got worse. You couldn't get used to the cacophony of light and color and just
visual destruction.
In time though you managed it, through blind wandering and headaches galore. A drawer near the entry way gave you an unexpected gift when you opened it, to find a metallic feather whose end dripped with a blue-black ink, despite none being present. Pulling it out of the room, you could see the blue-black inkiness in its essence as well, drawn through the feather-y bits down to the tip you could write with. You scribbled on the floor ceaselessly to see if it ended. It did not. It was not exactly the most exciting of imbued objects to get - the Garden had room enough for the flowers used to make the inks you used for your mapping - but it proved that there was more to be found.
The next night you stumbled further in before you started looking. An armoire of clothes gave you hope, but as you opened it the few pieces of clothing within tore easily under the barest hint of your strength. Whatever their imbuement was, it did not make them akin to armor in the least, unlike the Guardian Robes you'd hoped they would be similar to. Instead it's as you fumble with trying to leave it behind that you stumble upon your second treasure - you kick something out from under the armoire on accident, and hear it clinking as it flies away. You open your eyes to the cacophony, and it nearly blinds you - but you can see the small gem skipping along the ground from its old resting place. You can also see the piercing green essence for just a second before it's covered by all the other chaotic colors.
It takes you time and effort to locate it without retching all over the floor, taking quick peaks and feeling around with your hands from your knees for it. But you know it when you touch it, because your entire ungloved hand loses sensation. You panic and open your eyes, and can see wood creeping over your hand from where you had grabbed the gem - and that it no longer was in your fingers, but appeared to have
embedded in your palm. Panicking is the least of it as you rush out of the room to keep yourself from getting sick on top of it all. You knock over a table and send a chair shattering against the floor with the speed and strength at which you escape.
The spread of the wood stopped just below your elbow, by the time you had made it out. It only took seconds to complete the transformation. And as you use your other hand to dig the crystal out of your hand, you manage to pull it out without issue - your hand instantly snapping back to normal, with no hole in it to show where the gem once was.
Except that now the other hand was quickly warping itself into a similar state, as you lost your feeling in it. This time you used your robe's sleeve as you grabbed it once more, letting it bounce along the ground as you practically throw it in the empty hallway. It glows brighter than your robe ever did under your essence sense, the emerald and brown light mottled and messy but strong. You weren't sure what it was for, but you didn't enjoy the feeling of having hand or forearm for a bit. You consider getting it melted down and made into something new - but there wouldn't be a chance for that until Void ended, and the craftsmen were less busy repairing everyone's damaged robes, arms, and armor.
What do you do with the gem?
[ ] A. Keep it for myself, and try to learn what it does.
[ ] B. Keep it for myself, and keep it to be remade later.
[ ] C. Give it to my Father to see if it's dangerous.
[ ] D. Give it to my Father for the Guardians to use.
[ ] E. Leave it, I think it's dangerous.
That experience turns you off for the night from exploring more either way - you already had a splitting headache from spending too much time looking around the room. You went home for your next losing match with Aditi. At least her wounds were physical, so you knew why they hurt and could sort of manage it. The headaches were something else entirely. When you returned that night, you didn't find anything, even as you opened what appeared to be a jewelry case - all of it empty. The next night was much the same - the nights where you had to be back in the morning felt so short, with it taking nearly half the night just to reach the room, leaving you only precious minutes to sort through it.
When Aditi cancels on the last day of your first week, you are more than happy to sprint back though. You knew there had to be something more within that room. That there had to be things hidden away, that wouldn't need to be broken down in order to be useful. You just had to find where they were hiding. You stumbled in much the same as before - the mess you had made pushed to the side on the nights before to make it easier to navigate blind. As your headache reached a peak and you could feel your stomach turning upside down, you found something like what you may have wanted - within the imbued bedding you spotted just the barest glint of metal.
And as you scrambled blindly atop the bed sized for six people of your height to lay comfortably, you found what you were looking for. Your fingers touched cold metal, and for a second you were scared it might warp you again, change you. But it doesn't. You retreat with the small chain and iconographic amulet in your hand, leaving the room behind - shutting the door behind you. You weren't sure what the amulet was for, but it swirled with a clashing essence of red-orange and white-blue, that seemed to fight with itself. Holding it in your hand you felt no different. Putting it on your neck... you felt no different. You could tell from the essence that it was strongly imbued, but... you couldn't feel a thing. The platinum amulet chain inset with a ruby and sapphire seemed... mundane.
Could it have needed an activation word? You tried to control it as you would your shifting boots, reaching out with your 'spirit' towards it as you tried to order it. But it didn't seem to do anything at all. It was disappointing to say the least - you'd found three still usable items within and pushed through suffering to do so. And yet they each seemed at the very least weird and uncomfortable. It was hardly the treasure haul you were hoping for when you saw the room. You weren't sure if it was even worth keeping, but it at least didn't seem dangerous. Still, the actual combatants might be able to either find a use for it, or work it into their equipment in this busy time.
[ ] F. Keep it, wear it.
[ ] G. Keep it, store it for recrafting.
[ ] H. Give it to the Guardians/Warriors.
You considered trying to disassemble the room, so you could look more thoroughly - even the pointlessly imbued objects such as tapestries could be remade into something useful eventually. And perhaps in spending the time taking the room apart, you'd be able to search more thoroughly for any additional hidden treasures. Of course, recovering the objects wouldn't make you any stronger in the moment - you wouldn't receive any recrafted equipment until long after your exhibition match with Dawa. So perhaps that would be a waste. There were still two other pathways from to search...
You;
[ ] I. Take everything from the Grand Bedroom back to the Embrace. This will take your three remaining 'weeks'.
[ ] J. Just move the misc imbued items to other bedrooms nearby to search this room.
[ ] K. Leave the Grand Bedroom behind, search the halls north of the training halls.
[ ] L. Leave the Grand Bedroom behind, search the halls east of the training halls.
[ ] M. Abandon this section, and go to write in direction.
[ ] N. Try to work on the Nakul doors with the rest of the month.
Updated shit map below.
