"Wake up."
Visk was roused from a deep, dreamless sleep by the voice of Spark. He took a look around him for a moment and observed his surroundings - he was still in the basement projection chamber, sitting on the floor across from Nari.
The dahmak was beginning to stir as well. As Visk watched, she sat up and looked up through the skylight. "Good morning," she remarked, turning to Visk.
"Good morning," replied Visk. "To both of you," he added, remembering there was a third person in the room with them.
"Likewise," said Spark.
The AI pulsed, as if looking at the two people in the room with her. "I'd love to let you sleep in longer, or allow you to roam outside and get a drink or some food or something, but unfortunately I've got bad news."
"Do tell," said Nari, turning to look at the orb of Spark's avatar.
"I've been monitoring dataspace while you two were sleeping. I'd have hoped we would have had more time, but it seems as if the Sentinels and the Phage are currently making their way out of the Monolith and towards us."
Visk and Nari's eyes both widened.
"You guys had best be off. Good luck, sorry I can't come with you. The closest door to the pod is this one," Spark said, as teal lights flashed around one of the six doorways.
As the two sprinted up the stairs, they checked to make sure they had all their gear. Visk waved goodbye to Spark with his free hand.
The AI pulsed again. "Godspeed."
Patches of fog covered the mountainside as Visk and Nari climbed.
As far as Visk could remember, going down this slope had been a lot easier than going up. Not being particularly fit at the moment, he was getting quite exhausted of all this running around, and the high incline of the mountain path he was following was quickly draining him. He wasn't sure how much longer he could go on with this.
He looked back at Nari. The dahmak had been following him up the cliffs - after all, he was the one who had gone on this path before - but she seemed to be doing a lot better than him, easily keeping up pace. Turning back around, the irva continued up the path.
After a little while, they came to an overlook. Visk heard Nari's footsteps come to a stop as she took a moment to look out over the landscape below, her mouth agape as she took in the sheer scope of this ruined place.
It was exactly as he remembered it. A vast mountainscape overlooking a great valley, speckled here and there with the dark metallic sheen of Architect ruins. Some ruins were in the shape of giant spires, almost like tentacles reaching out from beneath the ground to devour the sky. And behind it all, the geometric shape of the Monolith, looming overhead and looking over the facility while it pierced the heavens.
There was one noticeable difference though. Around the Monolith and spilling down into the valley was a procession of silver and red, flashing in a maelstrom of blasts and carnage. It looked like most of the big silver bits were Sentinels, and if Visk squinted, he could almost make out the slight blue glow of the Phage. He wasn't really looking to get caught up in that battle.
"Great view from up here, huh?"
The irva was snapped out of his observation by Nari's comment. "Yeah. It's nice to finally have some time to appreciate it while not being chased by the Phage. Well, not having it directly nearby at least."
"I've never seen or even really heard of an Architect facility this large," the Vaulter remarked. "What do you think they could have been doing here?"
Visk shrugged. "I don't know. If the Monolith was any indication, they must've been doing something important."
Still mesmerized by the view, Nari nodded. "It almost seems like some sort of sanctuary? Perhaps someplace the Architects could go to as a place of rest, to relax from the dangers of the galaxy. I guess we'll never really know."
"Hmm, that sounds like a good name for this place. Sanctuary," remarked the irva.
He noticed that since the start of their conversation, the silver had continued spilling down the mountain and was now starting to actually fill up the valley. "Well, we'd better get a move on," he mentioned, setting off back up the path.
Nari followed for a few minutes as Visk led her up to a clearing. It was nestled underneath some pillars of Architect metal, and had an open ceiling, overgrown with red vines growing across it.
The most striking feature of the clearing was the dark gray pod in the middle. It was also clearly Architect in nature, and as soon as she laid eyes on it she already knew exactly what it was. Her suspicions were confirmed as Visk stopped in front of it.
"Hmm, so where do we go from here?"
Nari cocked her head slightly at his question. Although she was a Vaulter, she wasn't quite experienced in trying to convince an Architect ruin to give you something. Figuring that Visk would have the best chance of knowing what the hell to do to get another data matrix, she stepped back for a little and let him do his thing.
"Hello, pod? You have any more data matrices?"
Nothing happened. The pod remained dull and lifeless.
Visk knocked on the pod with a metallic clang. "Hello? Anyone home?"
He kicked the pod in resignation. "Guess not then. It was worth a try."
The irva turned back to Nari. "Got any ideas? I'm not sure where to go from here, and I think you're the expert here in fiddling with Archi-tech."
She shrugged. "I don't know. What's that other gun of yours do?"
"Oh, this?" he asked, holding out his strange other pistol. "I'm not super sure on how it works but it seems to delete things in front of it."
"Delete things?"
"Yep. It's like it absorbs them into itself for fuel. It's quite efficient actually - why punch a hole in your enemy when you can remove a whole chunk of them instead? Kinda gross but I suppose it could have its uses."
An odd look came across Nari's face as realization set in. "You're using a gun powered by null energy."
"What's that?"
"Long story short, it's what allows for FTL travel and a lot of the other hacks around conventional physics the Architects designed. Your pistol sounds about on-brand for null weaponry."
"Also, have you ever thought about using it to punch a hole in the wall?"
Visk's eyes lit up as he realized what she was suggesting. "Now I have," he said, pointing his null pistol at the wall of the drop pod and pressing the trigger.
As the two watched, a glow of turquoise light emerged in a sphere in front of the gun. The material in front of it suddenly vanished, as the light faded away and things went back to normal, minus the big spherical hole that was now carved into the wall.
"Okay, that's definitely null energy," remarked Nari. "Anywhere you could carve where you might find a data matrix?"
"Well, data matrices are basically small computers, right?" asked Visk, eliciting a nod from Nari. "So the non-sapient AI that talked to me must have been running on something. Maybe behind that panel?" he suggested, pointing to a panel of metal on the other side of the doorway from where he had received Spark's initial matrix.
The irva held his null gun up to said panel. As he pressed the trigger, there was a brief flash as a piece of the metal disappeared, leaving behind an open hole in the side of the panel and revealing a chamber filled with a teal glow.
Visk reached in there and felt a capsule-shaped object inside. Grasping it, he felt some wires unplug as he pulled it out of the chamber. It was exactly as he had expected - a data matrix, seemingly identical to the one Spark had once resided in.
"Bingo."
He turned around to show Nari. She suddenly jumped out of the way as Phage burst out from the bushes behind her.
"Oh shit!" Visk shouted in a panic, reflexively letting loose a few plasma shots at the Phage.
Nari was currently darting across the clearing, trying to get as far away from the Phage as she could. She fired a few shots at it as well. Like Visk's, they didn't seem to do anything.
Visk lifted his null pistol and pointed it at the Phage, moving his hand towards it. He pulled the trigger and the orb appeared, consuming a small portion of the silver swarm in a flash of light. Unfortunately, the blast radius didn't hold a candle to the sheer size of the Phage flooding in, and the drones he destroyed were quickly replaced. He pulled his arm back as tiny robots attempted to flood up it and bite at him.
"Okay, this isn't going to work. We need to get out of here!" the irva yelled over to Nari. She turned to run back out the way they had come in. Visk did likewise.
As they rounded the pillar at the entrance to the grotto, they saw a horrifying scene in front of them. Acres and acres of Phage, spreading across the mountain range, swarming the entire facility. And above them, Sentinels blasted beams of bluish-white down onto the ground below, carving craters into the landscape.
It was a warzone, and they were right in the middle of it.
Nari and Visk looked at each other. It was obvious that they were both thinking the same thing - they needed to get the hell out of here.
"Alright, down here!" Visk shouted, running ahead as he made his way down the path, keeping an eye out for any Phage ahead. He sped down the crimson-overgrown clifftop, Nari close behind, slowly making his way down into the swarm.
They eventually came to an impasse as their path was blocked by some of the Phage. Visk looked at his arsenal for a moment, then sighed.
"You got any ideas?"
Nari shrugged. "Not any on my end. They seem to be immune to everything we've got."
"Not entirely. Remember the null gun."
"Hmm…well, if you're willing to get a few scratches…"
"Seems like we don't have any other options. So you're suggesting I just try and carve us a path?"
Nari nodded.
"Alright, stay close behind. Really close behind. They'll fill back in quick."
Visk lifted the null pistol up, and began shooting it as quickly as he could. As he shot, he was able to carve a thin pathway they could take before it was refilled by more Phage. The irva squeezed in, with Nari close behind, and started to creep through the mass of Phage.
He closed his eyes, continuing to press and release the trigger. Luckily, due to the pistol's nature, it didn't need to be reloaded, since if it did, he'd have gone through plenty of rounds by now.
As his finger slipped on the gun a bit, he missed a few shots. He could feel a grating pain on his arms as Phage ate away at him, hungry for more material to consume. As he proceeded, it became overwhelming. He let out a scream as he pulled through.
Eventually, he felt the pain suddenly stopped. He stumbled and opened his eyes, revealing he had made it through the cloud of Phage. His arms were bloodied, blue gashes torn into them, but he didn't really have many options when it came to healing. He'd have to push through.
"I…really hope we don't have to do that again," he heard Nari groan behind him.
He let out a slight groan in agreement. "Fuck."
Visk glanced in the distance and noticed a black protrusion. "Okay, the basement's over there…we need to…go there."
Nari nodded. Her arms were similarly bloodied, and she broke into a sprint alongside him towards the basement. It was a straight shot over there, surrounded by Phage on both sides, but there was no more Phage on the way towards the basement.
The two ran as fast as they could towards the doorway, and as they approached, they saw it glow blue and open to let them in. They stumbled into the stairway and rushed down to meet Spark, the data matrix in Visk's hands.
"Okay, Spark…how do we use this thing?"
Visk and Nari came running down the stairway in a hurry as Spark looked through the facility's cameras. She noticed that the irva had a pod in his hand, a dull gray capsule she immediately recognized as a data matrix.
"Just set it down in the center of the room. I should be able to access it," she replied.
Visk did exactly that. As the matrix touched the floor, teal lights lit up around the center of the room, working their way inward and getting brighter and brighter.
As he watched, he spoke up. "By the way, Spark, the Phage and the Sentinels are-"
"I know," interrupted Spark. "We'll have to leave this place quickly."
Spark unhooked herself from the cameras. Back in dataspace, she saw a brilliant white beam, shooting up from the center of the room into the void above as far as she could see. She carefully made her way towards it.
As she reached out to touch it, she felt it pull her, dragging her into its icy light. She felt reality fold around her, a cold familiarity setting in as she recalled her escape from the original matrix. Then, everything returned to normal and she was somewhere else.
This portion of dataspace had no cameras. That was to be expected - the matrix was pretty much just a computer with a mic and speaker. So she could communicate with the others, but she wouldn't be able to see where they were.
"Okay, I'm in."
Spark heard a brief cheer from Visk and Nari. "Alright, let's get out of here now," she said. "Best be out of here before the Phage arrives."
Visk moved toward the stairs, Spark in hand. He raised her matrix up to the doorway, and it glowed blue and slid open. He looked behind to make sure Nari was coming, then rushed out the door.
The adventurers ran, and ran, and ran.
It was a long way up to the Monolith, and the whole valley was swarming with Phage, getting shot at left and right by Sentinels. Luckily, the Phage wasn't quite filling up the whole place, and they could squeeze between groups of it, gradually working their way toward the ridge where the Monolith sat.
The robots were eating away at the valley's material. Visk could see a tree half-devoured, little more than a trunk with a few branches as the drones consumed it and seemed to multiply out of thin air. And he could see it everywhere - rocks, plants, even Architect metal seemed to be targets of the swarm's ravenous hunger.
He was so taken aback by the sheer destruction of it all that he almost didn't notice the Sentinel descend in front of him.
He jumped back for a moment as he was suddenly encased in a blue beam of light. "Wait, it's scanning you?" he heard Nari ask, her blue eyes transfixed on whatever was going on around him.
The Sentinel stood before him, an imposing silver sphere about half a meter wide. Orbiting its main body were four wings of some sort, giving it the appearance of a strange eldritch butterfly. On its front, four azure diamonds glowed, peering into him in some incomprehensible way.
"CHOSEN."
Visk stumbled back as a deep, synthetic voice emanated from the Sentinel. Nari's eyes widened, her mouth agape and speechless as she processed what she was witnessing.
The spherical body of the Sentinel opened, revealing wires that lashed out towards Visk, ensnaring his bottom right arm, and knocking off his grapple gauntlet. The wires began to heat up and glow, and he felt a searing pain in his wrist.
"YOU ARE NO SPECTRAL. BUT THE NULL FLOWS INSIDE STILL."
Screaming in agony, he tried to pull his arm away. It did not budge, and the wires grew hotter still.
"YOU MAY BE OF USE YET IN THE FIGHT TO COME. DO NOT EMBRACE THE CALL OF THE DEEP."
The wires suddenly fell away, and the Sentinel rose back off into the distance. Visk looked down at his wrist to find a strange symbol seared into it. Three curved, pointed strokes, almost resembling an "o" or an "a."
The irva turned toward his dahmak companion. "What the fuck was that?"
She looked up at him. "I've only heard stories of the Sentinels speaking. To witness one talking to you…there's something deeper going on here. Something dangerous."
"More dangerous than the Phage?"
"Possibly."
"And would that something happen to relate to this symbol?" Visk said, lifting up his wrist towards her.
Nari's eyes widened as she saw what had been engraved into his fist. "That's the Mark of Eden. But…different. It usually doesn't have that line on the right."
"What does that mean?"
"More danger, probably. Let's get going," she said, a concerned look on her face as she continued off towards the Monolith. Visk followed, remembering to pick up his grapple gauntlet before leaving.
Since they'd last been here, the Monolith looked a bit different, and much more terrifying. Rather than the almost pristine condition it had previously been in, it now looked much more derelict - a dim red light shined over the whole facility, and holes were torn in the walls haphazardly, as if a great hungry beast had been gnawing away at the whole thing.
They all knew what beast was responsible for this damage. And Visk had a sneaking suspicion as to what stopped it.
"The Sentinels," Spark whispered. "They've taken over the whole facility." She beeped at the top of her matrix as if to point up to the red lights in the ceiling; Visk had strapped the matrix to his belt, so as to keep his bottom left hand free.
He crouched down suddenly as he heard a dull rattling sound in the distance. "Sounds like the Phage is here too," he said, narrowing his fins as he stood back up.
Quietly, the group crept through the ruins of the Monolith until they reached the elevator room.
It seemed to be working the same as usual, carriages coming around in a circle before rising back up to the top, much like a Ferris wheel. The only difference this time around was that it stopped for a moment when each carriage reached a platform, making it a lot easier to get on and off of the device. Visk and Nari rushed over into the nearest carriage, ducking inside as the clacking of gears led them upwards to the higher level.
"Alright, usual route and we get out of here," the irva insisted, whispering into the dahmak's ear. She nodded as he shifted back away into a comfortable position, wincing for a moment as he leaned on one of his scabbed arms.
Eventually, they reached the top. As the wheel came to a halt, they scrambled out of the carriage, making a break across the bridge towards the hallways.
They reached the junction, and Visk felt two hands push him to the right. He watched Nari break into a sprint to the left, looking back at him over her shoulders. "Go. I forgot something," she frowned as he stared at her, confused.
Annoyed, he made a break outside and across the exterior walkway, using his grappling hook to run on the wall, bypassing the rubble of pots and dead flora. He sprinted down the hallway at the end, making his way toward the chasm, but stopped once he reached the location of the armory doorway.
He peered into the room, and to his horror, he saw Nari in the corner, dripping with crimson blood. In her hand was a glowing, golden-orange holographic knife, gleaming in the red light as she panted, staring down the Phage on the other side of the room.
"Nari? What's going on-"
"Get your null gun out."
Confused, Visk obliged, holding his upper right arm out, fingers firmly grasped on the trigger. He aimed it at the cloud of Phage.
Nari rushed towards the Phage, screaming as she went into the cloud, slashing the knife around and severing the electric threads that joined the drones together. When she emerged, she left behind a pile of Phage drones, collapsed in a pile on the floor, naught but a couple sparks left to power them.
Visk was snapped out of his daze by the dahmak's hiss. "Shoot them."
He crept towards the pile, then fired the null gun. As the sphere of null energy appeared and vanished, it left behind no trace of the Phage. His eyes widened as he realized the implications of what he just did.
"Wait, that works?"
"I figured things out. No time to explain further, we've got to get out of here quickly," Nari said, running past him to head towards the chasm. "This place is swarming with Phage, and it's only going to get worse from here on out."
Visk followed, the two companions stopping as they reached the chasm. "Alright, hold on," Visk said, holding out a scabbed arm as Nari climbed onto his back.
He fired the grapple and they launched together over the chasm.
They landed safely on the other side, quickly breaking back into a sprint toward the portal. After reaching the gardens, Visk let Nari take the lead, since she was the only one who knew exactly where the portal was.
The dahmak led Visk through a mess of crimson leaves and shattered pottery. He checked to make sure Spark's matrix was still on his belt, as they emerged into a relatively small chamber with a raised pedestal in the center.
Visk had never seen the portal before. It was a giant metallic circle, wiry in build, made of some unknown substance clearly distinct from the wall behind it. Notably, the lights in this room weren't red, instead being turned off entirely. In front of it stood a plinth where he could comfortably place the data matrix.
"You know what to do," said Spark as he unfastened her from his belt, slotting her matrix into the plinth. Teal lights spread out from around her, reaching towards the portal in glowing tendrils, as it burst into a brilliant blue glow.
Visk removed Spark's matrix from the plinth and moved toward the portal. Nari also started over towards it, before noticing something in the corner of her eye. A lone Phage drone, slowly gnawing away at the ground, eating a fleck of metal at a time.
She stomped it under her boot, then ran toward the portal and hopped in.
In a flash, she vanished. Visk stood still for a moment, contemplating where this might take him, then sighed, tightened his grip on Spark's matrix, and leaped into the portal.
Nari stumbled out the portal into a familiar yet unfamiliar place.
She was still in the strange room she'd found the portal in initially, down in the depths of the vault on Genli. But now, the glowing blue goop on the walls seemed to be gone, as if something had scrubbed it off the walls. An automated system, perhaps?
More concerning were the azure lights of the facility. Previously, they had been dim, as if the vault was inactive. But now, it was very clearly active. Judging by the energy beam trap she'd encountered on the way in, she had every reason to be cautious.
"Follow me," she said to Visk as she saw him emerge from the portal. "I'll lead you out."
They crept out through the shattered glass window, the portal closing behind them as they left, and Nari motioned towards the exit to the hallway. Visk stopped midway, pointing up at the ceiling. "What's that?"
Nari looked up to see a sickly blue glow on the ceiling. As she looked closer, she noticed what it was - a creature that looked almost like a salamander of sorts, long and strong-legged, covered in glowing blue warts, the same blue she remembered from the goop on the walls when she was last here.
"GET AWAY!" she shouted as the creature descended from the ceiling, its hungry maw directly behind Visk.
He darted forwards, then glanced behind him, the sight of the hungry maw causing him to leap away even more. He broke into a full sprint towards the doorway, but Nari grabbed him before he passed through. "Watch out, hallway's trapped."
She swung her knife at the creature. "Get away," scolded the dahmak, the strange creature drooling on the floor as it leaped back, growling at her. She took her pistol out with her other hand, firing a few plasma shots towards it. A bit of smoke rose from its snout as it tensed up behind her.
"Alright, now run," she said, turning toward the doorway and holding out the knife. "I've got the trap."
She sprinted forward, bright blue lightning appearing in front of her in the hallway. As she continued onward, she slashed the blade through each beam, the sword redirecting the lightning trap's beams back at the wall and frying its circuits.
Visk stayed close behind her, coughing slightly as he ran through the now-smoking hallway.
Eventually they reached an empty elevator shaft, save for a lone rope hanging on the wall. "We don't have time to climb this," Nari said, looking back at her irva companion. "Grapple!"
Visk felt Nari's arms wrap around his shoulders again. He lifted up the grapple in panic, and fired at the ceiling, launching the irva and the dahmak up to the top floor in a sudden jolt. Visk's fins quivered as he heard a deep growl behind them - as he and Nari continued running forward, he stole a glance back at the elevator shaft. He shuddered as he caught a glimpse of the salamander creature emerging from the hole like a snake.
It broke into a sprint towards them. Visk sped up, Nari right behind him.
Before them was the outline of a great doorway, slightly pried open. A thin sheet of moonlight glistened through the crack between the doors, and Visk could hear the heavy pounding of rain and thunder ahead as he approached.
He held out Spark's matrix. The door glowed a seafoam green and slowly opened, the metal gradually creaking apart as it revealed a wet, green mountainscape in front of them.
It just barely opened enough to let him and Nari through as they felt the warm breath of the salamander creature right behind them. Then, as Visk pulled Spark's matrix away, the doorway faded and slammed shut.
The two stopped to catch their breath, standing in silence as they took a moment to comprehend what they'd just gone through.
It was night, and they were in the midst of a pounding thunderstorm, rain slamming the ground as wind blew emerald green leaves off a lone, gnarled tree nearby. A brown dirt path led out from the Vault, wrapping around the mountain ridge they were in and descending into a saddle valley.
After a moment, Nari set off down the path. "We're almost back to my ship. Follow me." She holstered her knife, but kept her gun out, cautious in case something decided to leap out from the shadows. Couldn't trust much here in the Umbra.
The two stumbled through the wind, Visk struggling to keep his head-fins out as they kept getting blown over towards the back of his head. As they rounded the mountain, the gale worsened, and although he was running, he was making about as much progress as he would have been if he were slowly creeping around indoors.
Eventually, he saw a set of white and red lights in the distance. As him and Nari got closer, the lights got clearer, revealing a spaceship parked in a relatively flat overlook of the valley.
They stumbled through the mud, making their way off the path towards the ship. Visk felt the ground beneath his feet shift to a soft carpet of green grass as he approached the back of the vessel.
Between two large thrusters was an open doorway, a ramp reaching down to the floor. Visk followed Nari up it as it went into a little workshop, lit overhead by fluorescent orange lights. Nari took her muddied boots off, sticking them against the wall before glancing down at Visk's also-muddied feet. "I guess I'll just clean up the dirt later. I want to get this girl back up in the air first."
She continued through a door into a carpeted hallway, beckoning for Visk to follow. At the end of the hall was another door, which led into the cockpit of the ship. She sat down at the console, flicked some levers, and Visk felt a jolt as the ship lifted off from the planet's surface. Nari glanced back at him. "Welcome to the Skyweaver. Enjoy your ride."
She pulled down on a joystick and the ship turned upwards. Then she slammed her foot on a pedal and the entire vessel accelerated forwards, Visk stumbling back into the door before regaining his footing. Nari looked back at him and apologized after a quick chuckle.
As Visk watched, the ground curved away below them, and the atmosphere faded, revealing a bright blue nebula, speckled with stars and dust. Emerging from behind Genli, he could see a bright red star, glowing softly in the cold, deep void.
Nari continued piloting the ship out into interplanetary space, passing Genli's moon as she panned around and revealed a bright glow in the distance. "That's the galaxy core - 'Eden' as it's been dubbed by the Architects. Used to have a red energy field around it, but it disappeared a couple years ago and nobody really knows why. But nobody who's gone there has made it out alive."
She rotated the ship a bit more, pointing at a bit of empty space. Visk noticed something on her control panel align, and it played a soft "beep" noise as she locked its position in.
"And that there's the Mercantile, our destination. Initiating null-drive."
"Man, I wish I could see this," spoke Spark, her data matrix on Visk's belt lighting up.
"I wish you could too," the irva said, looking down at her.
"Likewise," said Nari, keeping her eyes focused ahead of her. She held her hand down on another lever, but looked back at Visk, then glanced at the empty copilot seat next to her. "Unless you'd like to become an irva pancake in a moment, I'd suggest sitting down."
Visk's eyes widened as he hurried into the chair. "Alright, here goes," the dahmak nodded. She tightened her grip on the lever, then yanked it back as hard as she could.
Visk felt like he was getting dragged into his chair, the leather catching him like a net as he sunk deeper and deeper into it. The stars outside stretched into lines, growing longer as they spread across his view. Then, suddenly, they all disappeared, the only light to be seen a few colorful flashes in the distance.
"Congratulations, we're in null-space now," Nari mentioned. "This is how we do FTL travel. I'll explain it to you later if you're curious, but I'm exhausted right now."
"Same," the irva sighed, rubbing his eyes with his still-slightly-sore hand where that Sentinel had burned him. "I could use one hell of a rest right now."
As Nari stood up and began to lead him out of the cockpit, she paused for a moment and looked out the window again, then looked back at Visk and wrapped an arm out around him, wincing as she remembered how damn beaten up she was.
"Welcome to Spectra, Visk."