A Hero in the Dark: 2nd Edition

Chapter 60: Together

I make my way up the ancient steps; they're old and cracked, most of them mossy but all of them sturdy. It's odd; this place must have existed for hundreds or thousands of years, if not more.

Although the Anubis blocks out the sun, it's beyond hot. I'm sweating like a water buffalo, but I don't complain. In a way, this is the best day of my life; it seems things are finally shaping up. No more pain, a source of guaranteed safety, guidance, no more misery, and I'm back on Earth.

I lost count of the steps at around one-hundred-sixty. Panting, and I sit for a minute and look down. Setrákus is preoccupied with some machine. He looks tiny from up here, as do the Mogs.

There's an old door to the Sanctuary, as aged as the staircase leading up to it, and based on the intricate symbols carved into it, it's obviously Loric. I place the five pendants into each slot, and soon, the door starts shaking, then it retracts, and the amulets fall, clinging all at once. I pick them up and return them around my neck. It's dark inside. I walk in. I'm relieved that the door closes behind me but also a little freaked. But I shrug it off, and with a breath, follow a long, dark, and foreboding cavern, igniting my ergokinesis to see, until at last, I come to the end.

There's a well in the centre of the room at the end of the corridor, emitting an odd blue afterglow. It's eerie as soon as I walk in. "Hello, Emily," it says—the voice from my head!

I backpedal. Many-Voice! And the fact that they know my name, frightens me almost as much as Setrákus did. "Hello?" It's like talking into a void, a space. "Who's there?"

"You mean you do not recognize me, child?"

"No," I answer. "I never knew who you were... Should I though?"

"Yes," it says. "It is I."

"Who are you?" I ask, taking a step closer. "How do you know me?"

"I have been around for centuries," it says. "I have watched you as long as Pittacus Lore has, since the day he granted you with my power."

"Wait, your power? What're you talking about?"

"Yes. The Legacies you possess were granted by me."

"Ergokinesis?" I wonder, in awe. "You—You gave me that?"

"Ergokinesis, telepathy, psychokinesis," it says, like a heartbeat, listing them one after another as if they're all just things, like they mean nothing and everything at the same time. "I granted them all, as I did with the others. I safeguard all your abilities."

"But why me?" Now that I'm face-to-face with this... thing—whatever it is—I think it's time I got some answers. "Why not give them to one of the Garde?"

"Many reasons," it says, but its inexplicitness annoys me.

"Like what?"

"Devotion, for one," it answers. "Rivalry, for another. You fight for emulation, or shall I say you used to. Yet, you are still a bridge."

I stare, unsure of what to make of this. I've been asking this question for so long—since I discovered telekinesis—and the answers were right here. How much of this should I believe? How do I know this voice is even to be trusted? And what does it mean 'I fight for emulation?' "What do you mean?" I ask. "I don't even know who you are."

"I am an Ancient Entity," it states carelessly, like it doesn't even matter. "I am what you fight to protect. Some call me Lorien. Others call me an Entity. I have a multitude of other names: God, Spirit, Prophet, Creator. You may call me whatever you wish."