"It's fine." I pushed past Ulanion as I spoke, heading for the stairs. "I don't think it's a trap."

As my foot fell on the first step I heard it from behind me.

"Who are you?"

"What?" I turned to look at my companion, trying to appear innocent. "It's just a trick, something a bit hidden in the core..."

"Don't lie to me," the elf said, his eyes hardening. "I may be mostly human, but I'm still old enough to be your great-grandfather. My people have studied the core to the very limits of what it can do and I know those symbols. They're connected to parts of that magic that even we cannot decode."

"I..."

"People have died Alana, good people who deserved better. Ormien died against that beast, as did Olnir, perhaps even your friends. You know something, something about this." Ulanion's eyes were hard, hand almost white-knuckled on the hilt of the fallen elf's sword.

I looked at him. We were both covered in gore, tired, and lost in this terrible place. Perhaps it was the golem that had given it away, perhaps my understanding of English, regardless it was clear that he wasn't going to let this go. Best case scenario was he turned and left me alone, worst, he'd kill me. In a fight, at this range, there was no way I'd win.

"I didn't ask for this, not for any of it. That monster, this place, it wasn't my doing, and me telling you everything won't help." I'd held this secret for my whole life, not telling anyone, not family, not friends. It had held me, kept everything together, at least sort of normal.

"I didn't say you were, but if we're to continue, I need to know who it is I'm dealing with. If you really are a princess or whatever that's nothing to hide, not from me. We can work through this, but I need to know who you are."

I sighed. "So far as I know, I'm in no way related to your king. I heavily suspect that we're related in other ways though, that we come from the same place. It would make sense, why our mana is similar, why we both understand the same language. I'll admit there's a possibility that he wasn't, but that someone near him was like me, but I doubt that."

"The same place?" I could see the confusion in his face as I spoke.

"This is my second life Ulanion."

"Second... explain."

"I died, in a place far from here, a place so different it wouldn't even make sense. As I died I was reborn, an infant in a small village, with all my memories intact. That's how I can read these." I pointed at the words on the wall, "and I suspect why my mana signature is similar to the king's"

"Even if I believe that, which I'm on the fence about mind you, how?"

"I haven't the slightest idea. Whatever happened I don't understand it either. There was a message back in the capital though, in the palace, basically said to come here for answers. Not sure what we'll find down there, but I suspect Justin knew more."

"The others, do they..." he began, only for me to shake my head.

"They don't know about this. Not even my family does."

"That seems even less probable. If you displayed that kind of knowledge at any of our schools you'd be found out in an instant."

"I'm fairly good at hiding it. Most people just thought that I was a bit too smart, a bit too mature. Moreover, no matter how much they'd like to brag the human schools are nowhere near as advanced as the elven ones." That got me a quirked brow.

"I'd like the whole story."

"Fine, but let's talk as we walk. I'd rather not sit here in a monster's den." With that I turned and headed down the stairs, my light following me. I wasn't sure if he'd come after hearing what I'd said, but happily he did.

"So, what kind of being were you before? Some monster, or perhaps something made of light or magic?"

"I was a human," I answered.

"Really?" Of all the things I'd said that seemed to be the one that put him off the most.

"Yes, just a normal one, didn't even have magic. Then again, nobody where I was had magic."

"Fine, wait if that's true.."

"It's likely that the great elven king Justin was also a human at some point," I agreed.

"Don't, don't say that out in public unless you plan on being beaten in the street. There's a lot of people who might even kill you for saying something like that." Ulanion looked a bit off at that idea.

"Not you though?" I asked.

"Like I said, I'm mostly human anyway. Lot of us have a good bit of human heritage, but I don't know if you could even consider me an elf anymore, at least not wholly. So a lot of that 'elven pride' nonsense doesn't really bug me." I noticed Ulanion was still keeping behind me, to keep his eyes on me. Looks like I'd lost at least some of his trust.

The stairs went down and down. As we traveled I told him about my first death. While he asked about my life before, he seemed content to let most of that rest.

"So there was no magic there?" he asked.

"Not that I ever knew of."

"How did you get anything done then?" The lack of magic seemed to surprise him the most.

"We studied the world in depth, and used what we learned to build machines that did the work for us. There was a saying, 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.' that was bandied about a lot." I shrugged, there wasn't much to tell him there.

"Sorry, you knew what magic was, but never saw it?" He seemed a bit hung up on that, though I suppose this world wouldn't really understand if I tried to explain some of the more odd parts of electronics, not that I could.

"Mmm, there were stories, a lot of them, but most were disregarded as myth. Oh I suppose I did see one bit of magic, when I died. Don't know if that really counts."

"Perhaps there was magic, you just didn't know about it," he postulated.

"I've considered that, but it doesn't really matter in the end."

As we kept going down I noticed it. First it was a slight glow to the rock. It took me a bit to realize what I was seeing, at first I thought that perhaps the rock was just like this, or some enchantment. No, it was mana, something was putting out mana like some kind of nuclear reactor, and we were headed towards it.

"Look alive Ulanion, I don't know what was powering this facility, but I think we're about to find out."

The elf couldn't see mana as such, but as we got deeper and deeper he must have sensed it somehow, as his eyes started to snap around the tunnel.

"This is weird, it's like something's just out of my vision," he said.

"This place is putting of mana like I've never seen before, and I think I'm only seeing the excess."

Eventually we came to a set of double doors. The archway above was covered in runes, but it looked frankly beyond me. If the king had made this place and invited us, certainly this wasn't a trap.

"Want to open those?" I asked, hoping that I wouldn't need to touch them.

"Oh, I wouldn't want to intrude. May be that you need a certain mana signature not to trigger whatever is on them," he answered.

He had me there, and while I was nervous about it there really was only one thing to do. I grabbed the handles together and pulled.

I barely had them open when the wave of mana hit me, sending me sputtering back. It was almost physical how much power was locked behind those doors and the rush of pale blue light in my aura sight was just too much. Normally when magic was working you didn't see anything, even if it was pretty potent, but this, it was just too much to be ignored.

"What the fuck!" I yelled, covering my eyes as I tried to adjust to the input.

"I can feel that," Ulanion responded.

Once my eyes had cleared and I could see again the room became clear. It was a huge natural cavern, stadium sized. In the center it was bowl shaped with a large pool. Around said water were symbols looping and turning, branching off like fractals, symbols I could never forget. Even if I could have looked past those the vines creeping all along the floor sent me nearly into shock.

"This is where it started," I whispered, fear creeping into my voice.