Chapter 771: Keep It In

The record flickered again, and Leon made himself turn away.

He wanted to touch it. He also wanted the rest of the exposed deposit safely stored before he spent time on a device whose contents he couldn’t predict.

He marked the alcove’s position and returned to the wall.

The remaining layers came away much like the first ones. Where crystal crossed a conduit joint, he left it attached. Elsewhere, he followed the natural seams until only a thin coating remained against the stone.

He had enough slabs to fill a storeroom by the time he finished. He couldn’t yet turn that into a reliable number of cultivation sessions. Preparation losses and compatibility tests would decide how much he could actually use.

But he no longer needed to picture the harvest as a few precious samples. There was room to work with it, and that was worth the ache in his ribs.

At the grate, he paused.

Below him, pale liquid filled a broad basin. Thick deposits clung to the channels disappearing beneath the floor, denser than the exposed growth he’d collected. The source had been feeding this place long enough to bury parts of its own workings.

He could sense more material beyond his reach.

Getting it would mean opening the floor, cutting into the conduits, or interfering with the basin itself. None of those sounded particularly wise while the machinery was operating and he didn’t know how it regulated its output.

Outside, thousands of creatures were drinking from that output. If he stopped it, or caused a violent release, he might end up trapped between a failing reservoir and a very interested herd.

He glanced at the packed harvest in his ring, then at the stubborn glow below.

Don’t be greedy.

That was unrealistic. He amended the thought before walking away.

Don’t be stupidly greedy.

He checked the doorway barrier, drank some water, and went back to the alcove. The brief image had suggested a record rather than an active control, but he still examined the pedestal before touching it.

The pane was about the size of a book. Faint characters ran down one edge in a script he didn’t recognize. No obvious connection linked it to a valve or a moving part of the reservoir.

Leon applied a small thread of qi and watched for a response.

The image returned.

It showed the chamber with its floor clean and the walls free of accumulated essence. Robed figures stood around the central grate. One knelt at a conduit while another checked something against the pedestal. The guardian waited near the doorway with its visor raised.

Alongside the scene came an impression of care and continued work. Keep it running. Tend it.

Leon couldn’t turn the sensation into a precise sentence. It carried purpose more clearly than detail, rather like understanding someone’s urgency without understanding their words. The characters along the edge of the pane remained meaningless.

He watched the scene repeat once before allowing it to advance.

A map appeared, then broke into overlapping fragments. Points of light formed a broad ring across a landscape, linked by lines that disappeared whenever the image stuttered. He recognized the shape of the nearby plain before the projection collapsed into darkness.

The next sequence struck him with a sudden sense of alarm.

A white fracture spread across a sky. Towers broke beneath it. Lights vanished from a distant network while figures hurried through rooms he couldn’t place.

Fear accompanied the images, followed by a stubborn insistence on holding something in place.

Leon took his hand from the edge of the pedestal. The scene continued without more input.

He hadn’t expected to feel anything from a damaged record. Now he was standing in the room those people had maintained, with the guard broken behind him and their careful work still moving through the walls.

He looked toward the reservoir.

Had the sky’s destruction made this place the Sundered Expanse? It seemed possible. He had no way to tell whether the record showed the entire disaster or one event within it.

More fragments followed. Workers left the chamber. The guardian knelt. Pale growth gathered along the walls in successive images, spreading over surfaces that had once been clean.

Large gaps interrupted the sequence. Some frames showed only light; others held unreadable writing over a blank field. Whatever explanations had accompanied them were either damaged or inaccessible to him.

The machinery had outlasted its attendants. Beyond that, he needed to be careful about filling in what he wanted to know.

He waited through another stretch of broken images.

Then the map returned, clear enough that he leaned closer.

The plain lay along one side. Mountains crossed another, with a dark forest farther north. Near the center rose the black height he’d seen from the ridge on entering the floor.

The citadel.

Points around it supplied a broad network. One matched the ruin where he stood. He followed its line across the map, expecting it to join an outer defensive boundary.

Instead, the flow ran toward the citadel.

So did the others.

He watched the movement repeat. Each surviving station fed inward, concentrating its effect around the central height. The impression accompanying this image was much clearer than the earlier fragments.

Keep it in.

Leon slowly straightened.

The pipes behind him were still humming. He’d been pleased that destroying the guardian hadn’t stopped them. Now he was considerably more pleased that he’d left the buried accumulation alone.

He brought up the Tower’s objectives and read the highest listed requirement again.

[S — Defeat all four regional guardians, enter the citadel, and overcome its ruler before departing.]

Nothing in that line explained the containment network.

The ruler might be what the builders had confined. It might be responsible for keeping something else confined, or have taken the citadel after the original defenders failed. The damaged record couldn’t answer that.

Nor did it prove that defeating the other guardians would disable the remaining stations. The first construct’s destruction had left this reservoir working. He would have to examine each place on its own merits instead of assuming they all functioned alike.

Leon dismissed the panel and studied the map again, fixing the recognizable landmarks in his memory. His ribs throbbed beneath the dressing. The next useful thing he could do was recover, not rush toward a mystery while running on half a reserve.

He could still pursue the higher evaluation. He wanted the rewards as much as he had before seeing the record.

But before he went into that citadel and killed its ruler, he wanted to know what would be left without a keeper.

On the pane, several points along the ring had already gone dark.

The remaining lights continued pouring inward.