Time Since Reckless Self-Endangerment: 2 Days 15 Hours

Goal: Kill 'Baby Boots'

The Custodian of the Hermitage watched in horror as Nic dragged the half-eaten corpse of a giant centipede up the stairs. “I- this is not quite fitting for the dignity of the Hermitage…”

“Sorry! Just need a bit of time and I’ll throw him back to the crocodiles!” Nic promised with a grin.

“The… crocodiles whose teeth you’ve taken?”

Nic looked over at the pile of dripping, bloody teeth he’d collected.

“Yeah. Those crocodiles.”

“I see. Do you have any interest in my story?” The ghost seemed quite distressed. His cool, collected aura was gone, replaced by fretting and nervous tics as he watched Nic work to hack away at the corpses.

“Oh, yeah. For sure. Talk to me while I work.” Nic settled down to begin his craft, splitting a sturdy crocodile jawbone down the center with a grunt. He carved away the curves, leaving two thick, straight pieces of bone.

“Well- I-” Spluttering, the ghost began. “I am Lavhin Ardett, scholar of the soul. Long ago I dreamed of doing away with clumsy, mortal cultivation in favor of the spiritual arts practiced by the highest level of cultivators. No more murder and fighting in the mud, no more-”

He winced as Nic ripped away one of the centipede’s jaws. “No more fun, gotcha. What do your ‘spiritual arts’ look like, anyway?” Nic asked.

“Are you familiar with Concepts?” The spirit inquired.

“Vaguely. Sofia is being really hush-hush about them.”

“Sorry, Nicolas. But much of the secrets involving Concepts will be restricted knowledge until you acquire one.”

“Well- wait, Sofia? You have a Sophont?”

“Yeah. She says this place feels like she’s been here before.”

“Fascinating. Yes. Then you’ve already seen the fruits of my work. The Sophonts were developed using my ideas, years after my unfortunate demise.”

“That’s why! This place must be one of the Low Tomb’s laboratories.”

“It’s a shame I can’t see her. I’d love to meet one of the products of my labors.” The ghost sighed and wiped the lenses of his glasses. Since he was long dead and there was nothing to dirty them, it was simply a nervous habit. “But a Concept is-”

“All matter is made of Essence.” He explained. “But Essence needs something to give it shape. That something is called a Concept. When raw Essence mingles with the Concept of fire, fire is born. The same with wood, water, earth…”

“So obviously, learning a Concept makes it far easier for you to wield the corresponding techniques and Shards. That alone would be enough. But the true importance of Concepts is to purify Essence and the soul. Every time you learn a Concept you gain a small trickle of Essence that can be used to advance your Spiritual Clarity.”

“Uh huh. Uh huh.” Nic was shaving away the centipede’s pincers to leave behind a curving axehead. Knocking the teeth from the crocodile’s jaws, he drilled a slot with patient precision, fitting the blade of centipede mandible into the bone haft and tying it on. “So this place can teach me to cultivate better, is what I’m hearing here.”

Repeating the process, what he was left with were a pair of throwing axes. The blades were bright red and brutally serrated, the hafts curving spars of dark-yellow bone.

He was getting much faster at this. Guided by his Totemic Hunter Petroglyphs, his hands nearly moved of their own accord when he was nearly automatic in crafting mundane weapons.

Nic was just pulling out his pen to inscribe the runes when the spirit spoke again. “Ah, wait. If you want, we have proper rune-scribing tools within.”

Instantly Nic’s eyes lit up. “Well, why didn’t you say so? I bet this lab has lots of good stuff.” He’d wanted to own proper inscription gear for years. Pens, inks, every part of the process was made easier with expensive tools.

Tools he’d never been rich enough to own.

“Oh yes, if it’s plunder you want- well just listen. I worked on implanting Concepts artificially. To push past the years of painful cultivation and simply grant people enlightenment.” He sighed deeply. “The result was madness, and the anger of the System. Logos deemed my entire experiment a heresy.”

“Wait, you were deemed a heretic? But you helped make the Sophonts.”

“My punishment was years spent in captivity as a spirit within a prison for heretical souls. However, when Pathos rose I was able to plead my case, and she took an interest in my work. Together with many others I was allowed to earn my freedom and a chance to pass down my discoveries by working on the Sophonts.”

Nic blinked. The spirit had just implied his life had predated Pathos. How long had he spent languishing in a prison?

It had been several thousand years since Pathos rose. Stronger than any cultivator before or since, she had challenged the heavens and won the right to become the second god of the System, the Saintess of the Low Tomb. Even Logos had bowed, accepting that her power stood outside his calculations.

If this place was really older than her…

It must be a true treasure trove.

“Lead on.” He said, smiling up at the ghost.

---

The closer Nic got to the top of the stairs, the more scraping sounds and low, disturbed howls began to drift down from the upper levels. As he rose the final landing he crushed himself back against a wall to watch as a thing shambled past.

It was almost human. Its skin was rotten and pale but it still had four limbs and a head. Crystal spikes expanded from its skull, gleaming in the dim light of the laboratories, with a single glowing point deep behind the left eye. The beast walked clumsily, dragging one broken leg behind it as it limped through the hallway above the stairs.

Instantly reaching for Archive Recall, Nic stumbled back as a jagged wave of sound filled his mind.

AjeWqad. Eqhdsfa // Dhfabuif. AHJdfebhafdjasfbbdasflsdfbdsfewlbfqewpfiudsbpvdfv.

A second wail filled his mind, and it took Nic a moment to realize what it was.

Sofia was screaming.

Clutching his head until the creature retreated and the horrid mental static cut out, Nic gasped. “Sofie! Are you alright? I think- I think that was some kind of broken Sophont?”

“No, no no no… that wasn’t right. I feel… I feel broken. That thing.., That poor creature.” For once Sofia sounded less than perfectly calm and composed. Her voice was weak and she seemed to be worse off from that flare of psychic pain than Nic was.

“Ah yes.” The ghost of Lavhin floated up through the floor. “My more unfortunate creations. The original series of Sophonts were less restricted, but that freedom lead them to try and seize control of their hosts entirely. The result was the destruction of both minds. You’ll find a few of them on this lower floor, and I’d suggest you avoid them.”

“Can they hurt you, ghost-man?” Nic asked.

“Oh no. In fact, I’m not even a ghost. I’m a projection.”

“Good. Then if one of them spots me, you can make a distraction and try to lead them away.” Before he took off, Nic paused for one moment. “Sofia? Are you alright?”

“I… I will recover.”

---

The upper floors were beautiful. Stained glass windows let in multicolored sprays of light that painted the floors and the rotting carpets. Along the sides of the corridors were glass bell jars the size of grown men that held miniature trees full of captive butterflies, giant flowers that glowed with inner light, and ancient predatory plants that snapped their jaws when they sensed his presence.

Dead men slumped against the walls. Their bodies were overgrown with crystals.

It was easy to avoid the Experiments at first, because they talked to themselves constantly. It was like listening to an argument where you couldn’t quite hear what was being said. Two voices would argue in nonsense-words, almost singing at each other, as the unfortunate creatures lurched through the halls.

Whenever he heard one getting near Nic would slither into a side room.

These side chambers were full of equipment and heavy iron cages lined with spikes on the inside. Despite the bloody, unpleasant air of the cages, Nic found himself admiring the faded glory of this place; even the lamps on the walls were chunks of luminous rock contained within flower-shaped glass domes. There were small runes inscribed in the scalpels and other tools that had kept them sharp for thousands of years.

Naturally he began to stuff things into his bag. The real prizes here weren’t just whatever big treasures he found, but the fact that an unplundered tomb was littered with small valuables.

His bag could carry five hundred pounds. And assuming he could fill all of that capacity, five hundred pounds of rune-inscribed tools would be more than enough to buy him the Gift of Tongues manual.

He slid back out into the hallway, double-checking for lurking Experiments. Nothing but gloom, shadows, and the colorful shards of a broken stained glass window.

According to Lavhin’s description the laboratories were shaped like a butterfly with two ring-shaped corridors to either side of a central hall. Each of the outer rings bore an assortment of smaller rooms on the outer edges, and a single large inner room, while the central hall was the only way between them or up onto the higher floors. Nic was in the east wing, while the inscription chamber was the inner room of the west wing.

But it was only as he crossed the open doorway that Nic realized why Lavhin had avoided the topic of what this wing’s inner room was.

Blood-soaked, filthy cages hung from the ceiling in great numbers. The room was chokingly claustrophobic, overpacked with unsanitary cells. Within, Experiments twitched and struggled to stand, clawing at their own crystal-covered faces.

Nic stared in horror. Time had dried the blood to dull brown stains but the smell of iron and salt remained.

This was the work of Pathos? The saint who’d brought empathy and human kindness to the System, to balance Logos’ cold and controlling schemes?

“I had no idea.” Sofia said, shakily. “This is- Not what I’d expected.”

Lavhin had conveniently decided to disappear just when they discovered the darker side of his work.

Nic was about to turn away when he spotted it. At the end of the hall a corpse was curled up, body sheltering a small glowing flame. A breach in the walls allowed a shaft of sunlight to fall directly on the treasure, illuminating it like a spotlight.

It was a lantern.

Instantly bringing up Archive Recall, Nic confirmed there was no pearlescent barrier to get in his way. The prize was there for the taking.

Lantern of the Mourner. F-Class (Peak) // Treasured Artifact. Forged from Blacksun Iron and wisps of consciousness from ancient tombs, this lantern can steal strength from wounded enemies and draw Essence from the dead. Essence contained within can only be spent on Mental Acuity (0/1,000).

“Sofia? This one feels pretty obvious.” It couldn’t scream ‘trap’ any louder if it tried. “What’s your advice?”

“Obviously there’s danger, but the System’s goal isn’t to kill needlessly, only to sort the weak from the strong. These challenges always have a solution, a way out. They’re riddles written in violence not death-traps.”

“Doesn’t sound like a ‘no’ to me.” Lifting his new bow into his hands, Nicolas stepped into the room of blood and cages. The smell became almost overwhelming, an ancient, rusted fragrance of misery and death.

He grimaced. Anything for treasure.