The Revelation of the Vine: Graft

Chapter 7: Extreme All-Flesh Activity

  We let the silence linger for a while, reveling in the sudden tranquility, and taking the time to catch our breath and let our heads unscramble. My ears throbbed and hummed, a high pitched ring echoed faintly inside my head. The warning message I received from Sophia, the Crown s A.I., echoed through my mind, Anomalies detected . . . extreme All-flesh activity . . . take necessary precautions. The sounds of deep breaths and creaking armor slowly crept into my ears, as the ringing began to subside. I slumped down onto a cold, wet step and leaned against the frosted wall, slowly letting my head come to a rest, as the last of the water rushed passed us down the stairs. The Knights hovered on the steps between me and the Seeds. Some leaned against the walls, others crouched. The Seeds were sprawled on the stairs below them, taking deep breaths, and staring up at the ceiling of the tunnel. I was sure that they had been shocked by the events, and allowed them the time to recuperate. Bloody shadows, was that what I think it was, one of the Knights named Solanicus said. He had a rugged, angular face, with dark brown eyes and short brown hair. His helmet was sitting on the step next to his feet. What else could it be, another replied. A Drasian named Feng. He had similar features to Tenbu, with a rounder point on his nose, and long, straight black hair. Was that really the Tear, Captain? Solanicus looked at me, his eyes glimmering in the light. It had to be, I said, realizing that the Sages must have discovered that Jurgen and I had become suspicious. A few minutes passed as we sat in the dimly glowing lantern-light. The tunnel descended into utter darkness. I focused my vision into the darkness, and zoomed-in through the depths of the tunnel. The cold made everything look dark-blue and purple as I searched for thermal energy or soul essence, but I didn't see Kivan s body resting anywhere along the steps below. In the farthest depths of the tunnel even the cold energy faded away into pitch black. It was a sign of the spreading Corruption. If that was the Tear, then why weren't we warned, Feng finally asked through an angry bite. Because of us, Feng, I replied. Me and J . . . The Sages must have figured out we had started to suspect something was wrong within the Order. So you think they sent us out here to die, Sol asked crossly, and then slammed the bottom of a fist on the wall behind him. Why? What did you guys find out? Jurgen and I started to question their motives long ago, but I don t think they want us dead, I said. We never said anything because we couldn't prove our suspicions, but the day before we left, we over heard the High-Sage and some of the Prelates talking about finally returning to Old Atmos soon, to carry on the next phase of some plan, and something about the Lamentation of Sol. We didn't understand then, but now it s plain as day. Sol is the ancient name of the sun, and a lamentation is an expression of sorrow. The Tear. I feel like I should have known, men, I m sorry. But I m still not quite sure how UDA is involved. Unless . . . Unless what, Cap? Feng pressed the question. I didn't say anything at first, just pointed at Vhalrin. The Knights understood immediately. Then I said, We have to keep him alive. No matter what happens, he needs to remember. I need two of you to Step into the Vine and scout ahead for me. Sophia warned me on our arrival that there are anomalies present in the caves. Yes, sir, the other two Knights, Zahk and Korsin replied. Then they flashed, as if they had blinked out of existence for a single moment. It looks like the stairs are broken down below in the Transition phase, Korsin reported, and there s a lot of Corruption along the walls, but the Vine phase is unaffected. We won t have a problem getting down, but they will, he motioned to the Seeds. Alright, I replied. You two go on ahead and scout the chamber below. Wait for us there. Yes, sir. They replied, and then vanished into thin air. Not in a spectacular flash, or in a puff of smoke, or blast of wind; just there and then not there, like they had never really been there. Some of the Seeds began to pull themselves together, and slid up on the steps, pressing their backs against the walls. They looked around at each other, then at us, with faces still flushed red from the cold. That doesn't normally happen, I said, trying to break the metaphorical ice, and not sound too shaken by the cataclysmic event. I was more shaken by the fact that someone, somewhere, was pulling the strings of a plot yet to be unveiled from the shadows of a forgotten land. What -- was that, a voice asked from below. It was Falkir. He held the lamp up to his face, sitting about 6 steps down. The bloody apocalypse, that s what, Tenbu blurted out, the bloody end. He glanced at Falkir, who was sitting across from him against the opposite wall. Then he looked around at the rest of the group, and when his eyes met mine, they quickly dropped, and he stared at a spot in one of the steps beneath my feet. He finally turned his head to face the darkness below, and then tossed a piece of leather he was twisting in his fingers down the long passageway. Silence fell among them again. No one moved. They just stared forward from whatever position their head was resting. The Knights looked at me and shrugged. We re still alive, Seeds, I said, glancing down at each of them, trying to pull them out of their gloom. It can t be the end if we re still here. Apocalypse doesn't mean the end, it means something was revealed. Yes, something life-altering was revealed today; life as we know it is going to change. But we pushed through, and we re still alive to face it. In just this last hour, you've survived more than any of those who have come before you, and that s something in itself. The same goes for Jurgen and the others. If we re ok, then there s just as much hope that they re ok. We just need to keep going. We can t give up. Not on them and not on each other. A flame of hope ignited in their eyes, faint, but visible. Yes, sir, They cried, and began to stir themselves. Some stretched their cold muscles and gathered their wits, others took sips from water skins that the Knights passed around, and a few more secured their armor, belts, straps, and helmets. Everyone wrung out as much water as they could from the loose materials that absorbed it. A small stream trickled down the steps again. I could hear the echoes of it dripping down the long stairway until it hit the Corruption below and was absorbed. Where d the other Knights go, one of the Seeds, Falkris, noticed their absence and asked. He was an average-sized youth from Midmarch with dirty-blonde hair and dark green eyes. Scouting ahead, checking for the changes in the cave-system, I replied. We ll meet up with them down below. When they had finished getting ready and formed up on the steps, facing the darkness to proceed, I knew that this group was the strongest I d encountered in the past 300 years. Let s go, I said, waving a hand forward. Falkir, watch your step; the stairs are out below, but we still have a long hike ahead before we get there. The light provided by the lanterns brightened a small radius of the dark tunnel around us, casting wobbly shadows on the walls as we walked down the steps. The walls were blue and icy here, with a milky transparency. Effervescent pink and green lines could be seen coursing through them alongside frosted, silver pipes that cut horizontally and vertically through the ice, disappearing as they went up, down, and across. I continued to look for signs of Kivan as we descended, but saw nothing. Any blood he might have left behind could have already been washed down the stairs by the rivers of icy water that followed him. I kept my eyes open just in case. The thuds and thumps of ice falling on the entrance door faded into the sound of a heavy rain, and we descended deeper and deeper, following the frozen stairway down into the cave system. The rhythm of a heavy liquid splashing on rocks and puddles echoed up from the depths below, along with the cracks of falling rocks and the sticky thumps of them landing in something squishy. The faint howling and whistling of a distant breeze could also be heard, as it wandered through the many tunnels, cracks, and fissures within the cavernous depths. My eyes first noticed the Corruption as it crept into the light from the darkness below, covering the walls and changing them from blue, semi-transparent blocks of ice to void-black, warping walls of cryogenic, wet ooze. The air was growing colder, and a thin fog began to rise up from the ground, hovering a few feet in the air. The Corruption crawled up the walls, but the surface layer flowed backwards at the same time, rippling toward us like a creeping stream that defied the physics of our universe. The purple-blue thermal colors of the cold walls faded to stark black as the absolute-zero temperature of the Corruption covered everything. The temperature dropped steadily as we continued further down into the corrupted depths of the stairway. The icy sheen that covered the upper length of the stairs had been replaced by the cold, sticky ooze, and a luminescent black moss crept up around the corrupted walls. The drips of heavy liquid grew louder as we neared the exit. I see the break down below, Falkir called back. His voice echoed up the tunnel behind us. Looks like a cave-in. The walls and ceiling of the tunnel ended ahead. A large section of the ceiling in front of us was broken, with jagged edges hanging down like sharp teeth, dripping large globs of Corruption into the darkness like the hungry saliva of a predatory animal. The stair descended a few steps through the broken ceiling of the chamber below, where the glowing moss crawled into the tunnel along the tops and sides, and ended in a jagged outcrop of broken stone, covered and dripping with the effervescent Corruption. There were still no signs of Kivan. My heart sank a little more when I peered down through the hole, imagining him painfully tumbling down the long flight of stairs and into the chamber. I zoomed-in on the room below, and looked around the cold emptiness. Nothing. Nobody. That made me even more worried as the warning from Sophia echoed in my mind, . . . Anomalies detected throughout the system . . . Extreme All-flesh activity.